Residential exodus from Dublin circa 1900: Municipal annexation and preferences for local government

This paper studies the municipal boundary
expansion of Dublin in 1901, which occurred as a way to alleviate the city's  financial
distress. It saw multiple relatively wealthy townships annexed by the city via Royal
order to increase Dublin's tax base. Using a sample of census records matched to city
streets, we show that wealthy residents and Protestant residents were more likely
to leave annexed areas relative to areas that remained independent. Moreover, we
o er anecdotal evidence that at least some of the wealthy Protestant households
departing annexed townships sorted into jurisdictions that remained independent.
Our  findings o er support to arguments that the municipal annexation by the city
of Dublin may have accelerated the decline of annexed areas in the early twentieth
<span>century and contributed to municipal fragmentation in metropolitan Dublin.</span>