The public health has been undisturbed by great epidemics since the potato famine, although the effects of that calamity did not wholly cease until some years after. It is best estimated by the mean annual average of deaths among a thousand inhabitants, a ratio which has been low for the provinces of Connaught and Munster, and not excessive for the provinces of Ulster and Leinster. The following tables are of the death rates in two sample years, 1880 and 1889 respectively[525]:
| 1880 | 1889 | |||
| Connaught | 15·3 | 12·4 | ||
| Munster | 19·5 | 15·1 | ||
| Ulster | 20·0 | 16·8 | ||
| Leinster | 23·3 | 18·3 |
Four healthiest counties:
| 1880 | 1889 | ||||||
| Mayo | 14·5 | Galway | 11·8 | ||||
| Sligo | 15·3 | Kerry | 12·1 | ||||
| Galway | 15·6 | Leitrim | 12·1 | ||||
| Roscommon | 15·8 | Cavan | 12·2 | ||||
Four unhealthiest counties:
| 1880 | 1889 | ||||||
| Dublin co. | 31·7 | Dublin co. | 24·5 | ||||
| Waterford co. | 24·9 | Antrim | 21·2 | ||||
| Louth | 22·6 | Down | 18·6 | ||||
| Antrim | 21·9 | Armagh | 17·0 | ||||
The higher death rates of some counties are chiefly owing to their greater urban populations. The health of the cottier districts is remarkably good, and is rarely if ever disturbed by any morbus miseriae. The cabins, except in a few remote parts, are more comfortable than they used to be, the diet is better, the clothing is better, the education of the children is better. The present happier lot of the Irish peasantry can be measured not unfairly by the statistics showing the decrease in the number of cabins of the lowest class, and the increase of dwellings in the higher classes.
The history of fever and dysentery in Ireland subsequently to the great epidemics of 1846-49 has few salient points. Dysentery, the old “country disease,” has steadily declined to about a hundred deaths in the year, while the considerable mortality from diarrhoea, nearly two thousand deaths in a year, is nearly all from the cholera infantum or summer diarrhoea of children in the large towns. The history of the continued fevers is made complex by the modern identification of typhoid or enteric fever. According to the testimonies of several, it played but a small part in the epidemics of 1846-49, even in Dublin itself[526], and it can hardly be doubted that its recent increase in that city is not apparent but real. The following table from the year 1880 to the present time will show how the deaths from continued fever are now divided in the registration returns:
| Year | Typhus | Simple continued | Enteric | |||
| 1880 | 934 | 1073 | 1087 | |||
| 1881 | 859 | 774 | 813 | |||
| 1882 | 744 | 657 | 844 | |||
| 1883 | 810 | 593 | 853 | |||
| 1884 | 628 | 572 | 693 | |||
| 1885 | 505 | 443 | 716 | |||
| 1886 | 394 | 380 | 772 | |||
| 1887 | 405 | 385 | 740 | |||
| 1888 | 362 | 330 | 741 | |||
| 1889 | 359 | 250 | 968 | |||
| 1890 | 391 | 231 | 855 | |||
| 1891 | 266 | 183 | 859 | |||
| 1892 | 268 | 210 | 714 |