The government of the incorporated bor oughs is vested in a mayor, aldermen and coun cil. The large cities are now county boroughs. 'The chief secretary, the under-secretary and four commissioners, who are appointed by the Lord-Lieutenant, constitute the local govern ment board, which has supervisory authority over the local council. This board approves or rejects nominations made by the local authority, decides upon salaries and has the whole local government in charge to a certain extent, The 'judiciary of Ireland is similar in many respects to that of England. The highest tribunal is the Supreme Court of Judicature, composed of the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal. Other courts are the Court of Bankruptcy, the Land Commissioner's Court and the High Court of Admiralty. The English municipal law is administered by the courts of Ireland. The remaining public serv ices in Ireland are either wholly or partly under the Irish government; their official heads, whether paid or unpaid, are appointed by the Crown or by the Lord-Lieutenant, and with few exceptions are wholly maintained or as sisted out of the annual parliamentary votes. With the eventual introduction of Home Rule (q.v.), considerable changes will occur in the system of administration.
Population.- Since the census of 1841, when the inhabitants of Ireland numbered fully 8,000,000, the population has almost steadily decreased. In 1846-47 a frightful famine, occa sioned by the potato disease, broke out, and was followed by a visitation of fever and cholera. The population was in consequence greatly re duced, and since then emigration has taken the place of famine and disease in reducing it further. (See above, Emigration). From the causes just referred to the total population of Ireland, which might by natural increase have been 10,000,000, has dwindled away to 4,390,219 according to the census of 1911. In the 70 years the population per square mile had fallen from 251 to 135. The estimated population at 30 June 1916 was 4,337,000. The last decennial census revealed 2,192,048 males and 2,198,171 females. Of the adults 1,191,142 were or had been married, the numbers being 589,861 males and 601,281 females, while 91,523 males and 204,740 females were widowed, a total of 296,263. Those who were born in Ireland made up 96.4 per cent of the population. The re ligious distribution was as follows: The population by provinces in 1911 was as follows: Leinster, 1,162,044; Munster, 1,035,495; Ulster, 1,581,696; Connaught, 610,984. There were six county boroughs with popula tions as follows: Dublin, 304,802; Belfast, 386,947; Cork, 76,673; Limerick, 38,518; London derry, 40,780; Waterford, 27,464.
gducation.- The present difficulties in estab lishing a public system. of education in Ireland had their origin in the times following the efforts to make the people abandon the Roman Catholic Church. As a consequence, the parents refused to patronize the government schools. The laws of the time of William III and Queen Anne made it a crime for Catholics to teach or to have their children taught by Catholics, or to send them abroad where they would be educated in Catholic schools. The rigid enforcement of these laws resulted in a large proportion of illit eracy among the Roman Catholics, although they had established schools abroad which were attended by those with wealth sufficient to live in a foreign country. (Consult 'History of Irish Schools and Scholars of the Middle Ages'). The principal educational institutions in Ireland are Dublin University (Trinity College), the National University of Ireland (with three constituent colleges at Dublin, Cork and Galway) and the Queen's University of Belfast. Saint Patrick's College, Maynooth, is
a recognized college of the National University, which was founded in 1908. The Royal College of Science for Ireland was established under the authority of the Science and Art Depart ment, London, in August 1867. Together with the Metropolitan School of Art and the Irish Training School of Domestic Economy it is controlled by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. Its object is to supply a complete course of instruction in science applicable to the industrial arts and to aid in the instruction of teachers for the local schools of science. There are professors of physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, agriculture, mining, geology, applied mathematics, etc. There are also several theological colleges for the training of Roman Catholic and Protestant clergy; the General Assembly's Theological Col lege, Belfast, the Magee College, Londonderry, a Presbyterian college opened in 1865 and em bracing in its curriculum literature, science and theology, the College of Saint Columba, near Dublin, founded for the purpose of establishing a system of instruction preparatory to the university.
The Catholic University in the city of Dub lin, established in 1854, granted degrees in the ology and philosophy, and after 1883 was under Jesuit control. In 1908 it was reorganized as a constituent college of the National University and is now known as University College. There are additional, in different cities and towns, about 40 Roman Catholic colleges and seminaries for men and a large number of academies or secondary schools for women. There are numerous non-sectarian schools, some of them of royal and private founda tion and endowed, but the most prominent are those established since 1831 under the super intendence of the commissioners of national education. These schools are open to the children of parents of all denominations. The pupils are not required to attend any religious exercises or religious instruction of which their parents or disapprove, and oppor tunity is given to pupils of each religious per suasion to receive separately at appointed times such religious instruction as their parents or guardians may approve of. Of these schools there were 8,118 in operation in 1916, with 679,762 pupils on the rolls. The average daily attendance was only 494,318. The number of principal teachers was 7,687, with 5,734 assist ants and junior teachers. In 1892 an act was passed by which a beginning was made of free education and a modified system of compulsion. In 1878 an act was passed for the promotion of the intermediate secular education of boys and girls in Ireland. By this act about $5,000,000 from the Irish Church surplus fund was set apart, being invested in commissioners who are to apply the revenue arising from it to the purposes of the act, these being (1) the carry mg on of a system of public examinations; (2) the awarding of exhibitions, prizes and certificates to students; and (3) the payment of results fees to the managers of schools fulfilling certain prescribed conditions. The schools referred to in the act are of secondary or high school grade. The subjects of examina tion are Latin and Greek, modern languages, Irish, natural science, mathematics, etc.