The average population per square mile is 140, or less than one-fourth that of England, and about, equal to that of the State if New York. The loss of population has been at the expense of the rural districts, the urban population hav ing held its own. The following Wide shows the population of cities above 25.000 for 1891 and 1901: While the density of population is no longer excessive, even for a country largely agricultural, a large number are scarcely able to secure a live lihood. Certain regions arc known as 'congested districts,' and a special board has been created to aid the people and improve the conditions in such districts. The explanation lies in the fact that the tenants have been evicted from the more fertile regions Isee Agneulture) and have seg regated in the less fertile broken regions, espe cially in the western Province of Connaught, where the small holding of the peasant does not afford suiticient for the family, and large numbers are annually obliged to have their homes during the harvest months and supplement their income by labor in the harvest fields of Scotland and England. The class, of the old aristocracy throughout Ireland. as also the greater part of the well-to-do trading and professional classes. to the English element. In Ulster a part of this class belongs to the Scotch element. but a majority of the Scotch are artisans or cotters, whose economic standard of life is somewhat higher than that of the Celtic element, the latter belonging, almost entirely to the peasant and the laboring classes. According to the census of 1901, there were 131.0:35 persons belonging to the professional class, 219,418 to the domestie class. 97.889 to the commercial class, 876.062 to the agricultural class. 639.413 to the industrial class. and 2.494.954. mainly ehildren, to the indefinite and non-productive class.
Irish: in 1891 only 14.5 per cent. I S0,245). The percentage is naturally greatest in Connaught and Munster. where the percentages in 1891 were 37.8 and 26.2. respectively I wer half of the popula tion of Galway and Mayo were aide to speak Irish), while in Ulster the percentage was only 5.2, and. in Leinster 1.2. In 1891 only 38,193 persons were reported who spoke Irish only. In very recent years a movement has been started to popularize the Irish language again. In the last decade of the nineteenth venture the number who were aide to speak the Trish language decreased for the country as a whole, though the number almost doubled in Leinster, and increased also in Ulster.
Rmac.toN. That the religious denominations in Ireland correspond very closely to the different racial elements explains in part, the social fric tion which exists in the country. The Celtic Catholic Church resisted from the first the at tempts of the English to break its connection with Rome and impose upon it the changes which had. the religions revolt in England.
The property of the Church of course continued in the hands of the Church that represented the Government. The Catholics were placed under serious disabilities, not being allowed to teach school, or to act as guardians. Priests were obliged to remain in their own parishes, and were excluded from public affairs. Tithes were ex acted front the Catholics for the support of the Established Church. The disabilities were not removed until 1829. The tithes were commuted in 1838. When the political union with England was effected in 1800-01 there was also a union be tween the established churches of the two coun tries. The union was dissolved and the Trish Church disestablished by an act of Parliament went into operation in 1871. The act pro vided for the surrender of the property and reve nue of the Church with the exception of pri vate endowments. Since then the government of the Church of Ireland is in the hands of a General Synod which meets annually. There are also twenty-three diocesan synods. There are two arelibishops and eleven bishops.
It will be seen front the table below that about three-fifths of the Episcopalians are concentrated in the Province of Ulster, and the greater part of the remainder are in ',chaster. The Scotch who settled in Ulster were mostly Presbyterians. More recently Methodism has secured a hold among them. Presbyterianism was proscribed during the reign of Queen Anne, but with this exception was generally tolerated by the Govern ment, as until the disestablishment of the Epis Episcopal Church received a small annual bounty. The Church has 5 synods, 36 presbyteries. and 572 churches.
The following table shows the relative strength of the four leading denominations in the different provinces and the tendency of each for the last forty years of the nineteenth century. It will be seen that even in Ulster the Catholic Church outnumbers any of the others, and in the prov inces of Munster and Connaught the non-Catholic elements constitute but a very small fraction of the population. The extreme northeast coun ties of Londonderry. Down, Armagh, and Antrim have a larger non-Catholic than Catholic popu lation.
The Methodists are the only sect that did not show a decrease during the period, while the per centage of loss was greatest for the Catholics. In the last decade of the century the Catholics lost 6.7 per cent. of their membership. the Epis copalians 3.5 per cent.. the Presbyterians 0.3 per cent., and the Methodists increased 10.4 per cent. The greater decrease of the Catholic population is clue to the fact that the Catholics emigrate in larger numbers than the Protestants. See table under Population.