The Irish grain trade from the Famine to the First World War

This article presents the first consistent and continuous data series for the Irish grain trade, 1840-1914, showing that imports of wheat and maize rose massively. The resulting three-fold increase in Irish per caput wheat consumption occurred mostly before 1875 and brought it close to British levels by 1914. A consumer price index is constructed for the period, and it reveals that prices declined until 1900 and rose thereafter. Using the two new series (per caput wheat consumption and the price index), the authors estimate a demand function for wheat and show that the per caput increase was due to the rise in the real wage.