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It has suited both sides of Ireland's religious and political divide to portray the Great Famine that affected Ireland in the late 1840s as primarily affecting the Catholic population. However, while the geographies of the Famine have been explored in detail in recent years its religious dimensions have been largely ignored, albeit with a few exceptions. As a consequence, the assumption that the Great Famine was a Catholic famine has not been sufficiently challenged. Drawing on a relatively untapped source, the 1834 Commission on ‘the state of religion and other instruction in Ireland,’ as well as census data, this paper explores the relationship between religion, poverty and population loss over the Famine period. It shows that Catholics were disproportionately affected by the Famine because the Famine was most severe in areas whose population was overwhelmingly Catholic. In more mixed areas, however, the Protestant population seems to have been at least as affected as Catholics if not more so. This conundrum explains why the Famine actually had a surprisingly small impact on Ireland's religious demography.

Abstract Implicit in the planning and development of the suburban cottage council estates of inter-war England were hopes for a new way of life. The model of development provided by the Tudor Walters Report of picturesque cottages, streets, gardens and greens presupposed harmonious social relations and a sense of community. Yet one of the strongest narratives of suburban working-class life is the loneliness and desolation of the cottage council estates. The estates are usually depicted, by both contemporary and modern com-mentators, as bereft of any sense of community. This paper re-examines these views of the cottage council estates by detailing the development of social life in the inter-war period upon Roehampton and Watling, two of the London County Council's (LCC) housing estates. Drawing upon the oral testimony of surviving estate residents it is argued that from their perspective community was not absent from either estate, with the precise nature of community reflecting each estate's social composition. However, an unduly pessimistic view of life on the estates still emerged following the failure of the Community Association movement to engender support from the estate residents for a brand of community life centred upon educational and essentially civilising ‘constructive’ leisure pursuits.

Under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts from 1883 to 1919 Irish rural local authorities demolished many of the primitive one-roomed “cabins” in which agricultural labourers had traditionally lived and rehoused their occupants in solid, simple “cottages” located along the roadsides. When the First World War halted building operations nearly 50,000 new dwellings had been built each with a small allotment. Conducted on a national scale and in rural areas this was the first major public housing enterprise in the British Isles. Numerous forces influenced the origin and evolution of the legislation, including the Irish Land Acts, “constructive unionism”, the decline of laissez-faire ideology and the back-to-the-land movement. The acts form a long, complex series during which early defects were corrected and financial resources enlarged. Building operations quickened after 1906 when substantial state finance was made available on attractive terms, but for various reasons building was always less in Connaught and Ulster than elsewhere. Features of traditional houses were sometimes deliberately perpetuated but cottage design and siting mainly reflect prevailing medical, sanitary, moral and financial concerns.