Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
novel approach to the problem of dealing with inconsistent boundaries
over time with the introduction of the grid square package. This has led
to publication of census data at 1-kilometer squares across all of Northern
Ireland and for smaller 100-meter squares for all urban areas.
The two major changes in territorial organization just noted subse-
quently marked a divide between two different data-handling strategies.
In the project the data available for baronies from the censuses between
1861 and 1901 were analyzed without any atempt to relate baronies to
the structure of districts that succeeded them. The earlier data for 1834
were handled in a similar way. However, for the district-level material
from 1911 forward, it was possible to take a different course and use spa-
tial interpolation to produce estimates of all data values in the period
referenced to a single standardized version of districts as they existed at
the time of the 1961 census, irrespective of the particular prior version
of district boundaries for which the data were originally produced.
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By
recourse to this strategy, it has become possible to appreciate temporal
changes in Ireland's contested religious geographies.
Religious Change in Ireland
since the Great Famine
An initial impression of the dynamics in Ireland's religious geographies
is apparent from figure 3.2. The series of maps in this figure shows Catho-
lics as a percentage of the entire population at URD level at four census
dates between 1911 and the start of the current millennium. In the re-
mainder, non-Catholic population, the two largest Protestant denomi-
nations have been the Episcopalian Church of Ireland and the Presbyte-
rian Church in Ireland.
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The maps in figure 3.2 highlight the historical
dominance of the Catholic population in the south and west of the island
and the impact of the Ulster plantations of the seventeenth century in
establishing an enduring Protestant influence in the north, particularly
in the extreme northeast. Also shown on the maps is the border of North-
ern Ireland, established after the 1920 Government of Ireland Act took
effect in 1921. The somewhat lower percentages of Catholics in the south-
ern districts along the eastern seaboard and in the counties around Dub-
lin (known as “the Pale”), the Midlands, and West Cork indicate areas
