A quantitative analysis of the situation of Ireland's children during the famine era (1841-1861), this study utilizes census data to construct a series of indices to measure the quality of life for children in each of Ireland's 32 counties. While relatively little is known about the particular effects of the famine on childhood, census records from 1841, 1851, and 1861 do exist. Jordan also considers anthropometric data on military recruits, emigration figures, school enrollment, church records, and contemporary accounts to build a picture of Ireland's children. This comparative approach provides a wealth of information on family life in Ireland at both the county and the provincial levels. It addresses the role of home and school as a model of socialization and the use of emigration as a coping device. The author also explores the social climate created by the 1838 Poor Law. Ultimately, the stress of struggling to survive the natural disaster of the famine, combined with the political developments of the day, had a devastating effect on the young.

This work examines mortality among young children in the period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It does so using several types and sources of information from the census unit England and Wales, and from Ireland. The sources of information used in this study include memoirs, diaries, poems, church records and numerical accounts. They offer descriptions of the quality of life and child mortality over the three centuries under study. Additional sources for the nineteenth century are two census-derived numerical indexes of the quality of life. They are the VICQUAL index for England and Wales, and the QUALEIRE index for Ireland. Statistical procedures have been applied to the numbers provided by the sources with the aim to identify effects of and associations between such variables as gender, age, and social background. The book examines the results to consider the impact of children's deaths upon parents and families, and concludes that there are differences and continuities across the centuries.

This birefs examines mortality among young children in the period from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. It does so using several types and sources of information from the census unit England and Wales, and from Ireland. The sources of information used in this study include memoirs, diaries, poems, church records and numerical accounts. They offer descriptions of the quality of life and child mortality over the three centuries under study. Additional sources for the nineteenth century are two census-derived numerical indexes of the quality of life. They are the VICQUAL index for England and Wales, and the QUALEIRE index for Ireland. Statistical procedures have been applied to the numbers provided by the sources with the aim to identify effects of and associations between such variables as gender, age, and social background. The briefs examines the results to consider the impact of children's deaths upon parents and families, and concludes that there are differences and continuities across the centuries.

This book provides an examination of the quantitative and qualitative factors affecting mortality in two major cities of the British Isles: London and Dublin. It covers a scale from individuals mentioned by name to aggregates of mortality data in the Bills of Mortality. Focusing on the Seventeenth Century, the book pays attention to the Great Plague of 1665, and to earlier years in which epidemics decimated populations. To the average person living in the seventeenth century, life was a series of challenges. Mortality among the young was high, and for those who survived early childhood, death in their fifties was fairly typical. Men and women might aspire to a longer life span, but even the healthiest practices were no guarantee when the overall quality of life was low. With fatal illnesses exemplified by typhoid fever on the one hand, and the arrival of yersinia pestis - plague through ports on the Mediterranean at regular intervals of several years, on the other, mortality became a foreseeable event.