Abstract
In L.M. Cullen, “The Irish food crises of the 1740s” in Irish economic and social history, vol xxxvii (2010), p.23, data in the second and third columns of table 6 except for the last four lines were erroneously transposed. The table appears correctly in an earlier version of the paper in Au contact des lumières: Mèlanges offerts à Philippe Loupès, eds. Anne-Marie Cocula and Josette Pontet Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires, 2005, vol. 2, p 305.
The correct version of the table appears below. Grain imports* Grain includes barley, malt, beans, pease, oats and wheat.
Year ended 25 March
grain (quarters)
flour (cwt)
meal (barrels)
1730
65,859
21,471
1731
9,518
3,375
1732
11,270
7,538
1733
24,606
13,415
1734
36,660
14,216
1735
64,774
29,630
1736
61,910
40,436
1737
44,743
24,997
1738
16,522
15,079
1739
19,221
14,741
1740
13,098
19,887
1741
15,659
13,086
1742
78,487
24,446
1743
12,901
11,954
1744
2,990
20,978
93
1745
18,123
24,708
7,361
1746
288,347
110,832
51,643
1747
123,398
37,190
27,227
Note: A quarter equalled two barrels. The quarter and barrel are a measure, the weight varying according to the nature of the grain (A quarter of wheat weighed about 5 cwt.). Figures for flour are first recorded in the year ended 25 March 1744. The absence of comparable figures for preceding years (which, as flour was entering into cross-channel trade for the first time, are likely to have been small) may suggest that any quanties were included in the total for meal.
Source: The figures are taken from data in the appendices to the Journals of the house of commons, principally vol. ix, app. ccxlvii; vol. xii, app. cccxlv-cccxlvi (some small discrepancies exist in different reports).
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