Agricultural Head Rents, Pre-Famine and Post-Famine

N o country can ever be held in just estimation", proclaimed Arthur Y o u n g in 1780, " w h e n the rental of it is u n k n o w n " : and Y o u n g , in his Tour in Ireland, proceeded to estimate the rental of this country. 1 His w a s the rhetoric of the political arithmetician, but he w a s neither the first nor the last to e m b a r k o n aggregate calculations. Several of the best-known past observers of the Irish scene, from Sir William Petty to the elder Wakefield, also left their o w n estimates. S o m e , like Wakefield's, were carefully w o r k e d out; others, such as D e a n Swift's, were based almost totally o n hearsay or speculation. Needless to say, it is difficult, if not impossible, to assess the accuracy of these estimates. Wakefield's, for instance, seems far too high, and those of several earlier writers, like Petty and M a x w e l l , are often based on faulty guesses at the contemporary population level of the country. 3 W h e t h e r plausible estimates of the aggregate rental can be inferred from available estate accounts is at present unclear, though such accounts should inform us of movements in the rental at least. A start has been m a d e in this w o r k , 4 but it is still m u c h too early to risk sophisticated guesses at the rental during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. T h e present paper provides estimates, necessarily s o m e w h a t tentative, of the rental in 1845 and 1852, and discusses briefly s o m e of their implications for the economic historian.