Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd

Professor K. H. ConnellAuthor(s): Michael DrakeSource: Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 19, No. 73 (Mar., 1974), pp. 83-85Published by: Irish Historical Studies Publications LtdStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30006178 .

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Professor K. H. Connell

Ken Connell was born in Southampton (in 1917) of, what he called, Irish 'peasant' stock. He used the term frequently and it appears in the title of his brilliant collection of essays-Irish peasant society. It

was a term which caused offence to some and irritation to others. 'Obfusca- tory' it was described by one critic. But more of that later. After graduating from the London School of Economics in I941, Ken Connell held posts at Aberystwyth and Liverpool. He then returned, briefly, to L.S.E. before moving to Nuffield College, Oxford as a founder fellow. An unsuccessful candidature for fellowship at Trinity College, Dublin, was followed in 1952 by an appointment as senior lecturer in economic and social history within the department of economics at Queen's University, Belfast. He was to remain within the university for the rest of his life, apart from sabbatical years as a visiting professor in the graduate school of the National University of Australia at Canberra in I965-6 and as a fellow of All Souls, Oxford in 1970-71. At Queen's, a separate depart- ment of economic and social history was formed in 1962; Ken Connell, still a senior lecturer, became its first head. In 1966, at long last, Queen's made him a professor. Few outside Queen's could understand why the appointment had been so long delayed. Fewer still could understand the long and bitter wrangle which ended with his removal from the chair of economic and social history in 1972. He felt utterly rejected. He was in the university (he still had his pay and a room in an isolated part of the campus) but he was no longer of it. Behind him were two books which had brought him an international reputation and a host of 'incidents ', ranging from a dispute over the placing of some footnotes to a quest for an American visa, which exasperated even his closest friends. For most of us such incidents are met and then forgotten. For Ken Connell they became matters of the greatest moment, consuming all his energies. For him there was always a principle at stake. And yet often he would discuss them in a lighthearted, boyish sort of way. Did he make so much of them simply to tease the 'boys', as he called the various establishments he clashed with?

Professor Connell's reputation rests primarily on The population of Ireland, 1750-1845 which appeared in 1950. The timing of its public- ation was interesting, for it was the first major study of the determinants of population growth in pre-industrial societies to emerge since the 1920s. In the intervening period interest had been focussed on the prospect of declining world population. Since 1950, with the explosive growth of populations, particularly in the currently under-developed parts of the world, constantly before our eyes, interest in the problems he dealt with has grown enormously. Throughout the 1950s his work was cited widely wherever such problems were discussed. It was not until the i96os, however, that his work was critically appraised within Ireland itself.

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84 PROFESSOR K. H. CONNELL

In The population of Ireland, 1750-1845, Professor Connell had put forward the novel thesis that the sharp rise in Ireland's population, which occurred from 178o to 1830, was primarily due to an increase in fertility. This, he argued, had been brought about by a fall in the age at marriage, which, of course, lengthened the period that women were exposed to childbearing. The fall in the age at marriage was, in turn, caused by the willingness of landlords to allow the subdivision of holdings and the willingness of the people to subsist almost entirely on potatoes, a crop that was both notoriously prolific and nourishing. On a wider canvas, the novelty of this thesis lay in the fact that, until he wrote, the generally accepted view was that fertility in preindustrial populations was invari- ably so high that any increase was unlikely. The growth of such populations could thus only come about through a fall in mortality. By directing attention to the determinants of fertility levels in preindustrial societies, Professor Connell inspired many scholars throughout the world to re-examine the causes of population change and the relationship between them and economic change. The discussion is by no means ended. Nevertheless it now does seem that eighteenth and early nine- teenth century Ireland was not quite the odd man out it appeared to be when he wrote; for a number of studies have shown that the level of fertility in preindustrial societies was, indeed still is, subject to much greater fluctuations than was once supposed.

While on the world scene Professor Connell's broad views are now part of the new orthodoxy, his interpretation of the specifically Irish position is not now so widely accepted. Critics have noted marked discrepancies between the 'literary' evidence of the age at marriage and the statistical evidence provided by the I84I census reports, the former suggesting a much earlier age than the latter. Weaknesses in the statistical material used by Professor Connell have also been exposed. These, while not always refuting his arguments, have caused some to wonder whether the evidence as such is as insubstantial as the 'literary' or impressionistic evidence provided by contemporary commentators. The strongest criticism of all is that he generalised too widely. This brings us back to his concept of the Irish peasant. Before the famine of the 184os, he argued, the Irish peasant married very early, by West European standards; after it, very late. And by ' peasant', Professor Connell appeared to mean virtually the entire rural population outside the land- lord class. That he should make such a generalisation, and it is implicit in all his demographic work, is strange in view of his interest in and writing on the variety within Ireland of such social practices as courtship (in his 'Catholicism and marriage in the century after the famine') and drinking (in his 'Ether drinking in Ulster '). Professor Connell's work is still being subjected to close analysis by scholars in and outside Ireland. That it is so is but one indication of the great contribution he made, in a relatively small compass, not only to the social and economic history of Ireland but to that of western society as a whole.

Any evaluation of Ken Connell's work must be seen within the context of his character and the environment within which he worked. In him the two seemed particularly closely entwined. He laboured long

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PROFESSOR K. H. CONNELL 85 on anything he did. His arguments, developed with such care, inter- locked in edifices of great plausibility. But once created he was wedded to them as tightly as partners to the Irish 'match' of which he wrote so much. Paradoxically he welcomed criticism no matter how fierce. But one often wondered what his motives were in doing so. Certainly in all the years I knew him he budged but little on any issue. Perhaps if he could have done so on those often seemingly trivial non-academic issues which troubled him so much, especially in recent years, he would be with us still.

MICHAEL DRAKE

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