Anthropometric History: Revisiting What’s in it for Ireland

Abstract

This research note updates Cormac Ó Gráda’s (1996) critical review of the literature on the connection between the stature of the Irish, on the one hand, and their health and living standards, on the other. We find most of the anthropometric data sets used in this literature pertain to Irish emigrants rather than those who stayed behind. We therefore argue prison registers are a more appropriate source of anthropometric information. But results derived from these registers need to be handled with caution as prisoners are a selected population. We uncover the various observable selection biases inherent in prison data and track how they change across the second half of the nineteenth century. We find changes in selection into crime across time are more likely to have been due to institutional rather than economic factors.

Scarring and Selection in the Great Irish Famine

“…From 1877 onwards, prisoners serving longer-term sentences were sent to specialist convict prisons: Lusk (Dublin), Mountjoy (Dublin), and Spike Island (Cork). McLaughlin et al (2021) conclude there is little evidence of selection into crime across variables other than these institutional changes.…”

“…We find a disproportionate number of those incarcerated were not doing time for serious crimes, but were rather incarcerated for short spells for the social offence of “drunkenness”. Given the nature of this crime, which only began to be enforced in the 1870s (McLaughlin et al 2021), we argue that drunkards are likely to be broadly representative of the wider population of Ireland.…”

“…This has recently become a key concern in the anthropometrics literature (Bodenhorn et al 2017): were prison inmates representative of the general population, a criminal underclass, or selecting into crime differently over time? McLaughlin et al (2021) present and discuss the various selection issues surrounding the prison data used in the present study. They find any changes in selection into crime across time were more likely to have been the result of institutional (changes in criminal classification) rather than economic factors (various business cycle indicators), but do find that there is a relationship between the two during the period of the Famine.…”

“…Over the period of our study, there were three “prison regimes” (following McLaughlin et al 2021). The first, from 1791 to 1853, saw the removal of a segment of criminals from the UK as a punishment for what were deemed the most severe crimes: over this period, 26,500 convicts were transported to Australia (Kilcommins et al 2004: p. 17).…”