by Chris Black
This is an absolute catastrophe.
Ireland is a small country.
The Irish are being wiped out in their own homeland, and this is happening without much of a peep.
Over 40% of the population increase in the Irish state since 2005 has been the consequence of net migration of people born overseas, and the birth of children to mothers of other than Irish nationality.
Almost one and a half million people from overseas have migrated to Ireland over that period. Around 27% of that was accounted for by people of Irish nationality or citizenship returning to Ireland. However, that has been countered by the emigration of almost the same number of Irish people over that same period.
The natural increase in the population – as measured by the difference between births and deaths – has also slowed alarmingly, particularly since the years immediately preceding the banking crisis and the end of the Celtic Tiger and the return of large scale emigration.
The number of births in the state fell from a high of 75,554 in 2009 to just 57,540 in 2022. That is a fall of 24%. During the same period emigration of largely young Irish people has topped 50,000 in all years other than the period of the Covid crisis.
Of the 59,796 births in 2019, 23% were to mothers of other than Irish nationality. If that trend has been close to being consistent over the 2005 – 2022 period, then more than 250,000 births were to non-nationals.
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