Ireland through and beyond 1815 was still very rural with Dublin being the principal urban area. The industrial revolution had yet to have much impact. Belfast had its linen mills and related industry but the great shipyards and other industries were still in the future. I believe it took the famine years of the 1840s and the change in attitude of the landlords to achieve in Ireland what the clearances had done in the Highlands of Scotland.

Robert A. Mosher