Notes on the Demography of the Famine in Ulster

At what level of aggregation should the Famine be analysed? Some data are available only at a fairly aggregated level, while a small number are available down to townland level. Comparative analysis involves trade-offs between the level of aggregation and the choice of explanatory variables. While an artificial unit of analysis, the province, does have the charm of dividing the island into north, south, east and west, Ulster escaped the Famine more lightly than the other three provinces. But its impact, as reflected in population change between 1841 and 1851, was more uneven in Ulster than in any of the other three provinces.