Fergus Finlay: Five million reasons and growing to celebrate living in the Republic

You know what the number is, don’t you? It’s the Central Statistics Office’s latest estimate of us — the population of Ireland at the end of April this year. It’s the first time that this reputable national organisation has us passing the five million mark in a century and a half.

That really matters, to me at least. And I think I’ve figured out why.

Ireland's population was estimated to be just over five million in April 2021https://t.co/pbbSpBVBqF #CSOIreland #Ireland #Population #PopulationEstimates #Migration #MigrationEstimates pic.twitter.com/QsMjFqygBV

— Central Statistics Office Ireland (@CSOIreland) August 31, 2021

I’m no historian, and I don’t consider myself an ideological nationalist either. But I can’t help feeling proud every time I hear a story about Ireland punching above its weight. When New York turns green on St Patrick’s Day; when Jason Smyth brings it home again in the Paralympics or Kelly Harrington stands proud at the national anthem; when Irish soldiers come back from another peace-keeping mission, I’m inordinately glad that I’m Irish.

I’ve never been able to conceive of the idea of settling anywhere else but here. I’ve always had jobs that have obliged me to travel to every county in Ireland, and I know every single county after a fashion (some much better than others, of course). There was a time when I could give you directions to every single General Post Office in the country, but that’s a story for another day.

But here’s the thing. I said I’m no historian, but it’s always seemed to me that it’s an absolute miracle that we carry so much weight and influence in the world because I’ve always believed that we came close to disappearing altogether. I don’t know if you can describe “the Irish” as a species, like white rhinos or sperm whales, but if you can, we spent decades being an endangered species, didn’t we?

Vikings and Normans

We were invaded and savaged by the Vikings in the 9th and 10th centuries, until they were seen off by Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf. Even without them, we were so busy fighting among ourselves back then about who should be High King that we were always killing each other.

Incidentally, we always bore a grudge in my family about the disrespect shown to my own ancestor (I’m sure I’m a direct descendant) Aed Findliath. That poor man, although King of Tara for 17 years, and officially recorded in the list of High Kings, was never granted the crucial title of King of All Ireland. 

It was the pesky Vikings again, by then settled in Dublin in large numbers, and forever conspiring against Aed.

It’s said that Aed had the last laugh, by defeating the Vikings at Lough Foyle in 866, and by plundering and burning a lot of the Viking bases in the North of the country. He wasn’t a gentle soul, my ancestor, and after he died in 879, he wasn’t much remembered in the legends of the time.

No sooner had we come to terms with the Vikings, of course, than the Normans arrived. Brought here originally by one of our own, Diarmuid McMurrough, they basically never left. 

Cromwell and the Famine

Eventually Cromwell arrived and what he didn’t kill he scattered to the four winds of our island, in order to copper-fasten the plantation of Ireland by English and Scottish soldiers and their families. It was fondly thought at the time that plantation would be good for us – that it would have a civilising influence on the ignorant and barbarian Irish peasantry.

But what I’ve always thought of as the extinction event happened next, around 165 years ago. When the Great Famine hit Ireland, our population was eight million and growing. 

Not a rich or prosperous eight million, but we were there. We all know that the population virtually halved, as a result of starvation and forced emigration, in the immediate aftermath of the Famine. But it kept on shrinking.

Emigration

When I was six years of age, the population of the republic was significantly under three million, and it went down by another 80,000 five years later in the census of 1961. As I grew up, all my surviving brothers and two of my sisters left Ireland to make their way in the world elsewhere. 

Although some came back eventually, many never did. It often seemed to me, as a child and young adult, that Ireland was a sad and lonely place for the dwindling number of people who remained behind.

And would you look at us now. Over five million — not growing as fast in the last year as we would have without Covid, but growing.

One of the things I can’t get over about us now is the diversity, the colour of us. When I was younger, Ireland was grey, Catholic, and white. Now there are half a million non-Irish people living here, all of them contributing hugely. 

Five million strong

From Eastern Europe, Latin and South America, and Africa as well as the Europeans and North Americans. We’ll have to wait until next year’s Census to get exact numbers, but there’s no doubt all those foreigners have had a huge impact on us — for the better.

We already know from the last census how much we have changed in other ways too. The Ireland I grew up in was not just orthodox, it had its own inbuilt oppression in the dictates of a harsh and unforgiving church. Last time we counted, although we still call ourselves catholic, the number who still identified with the church of their childhood was falling sharply — and almost half a million of us professed no religion at all.

I don’t know quite how we turned a corner, but we did. Even in recent times, we’ve endured darkness and cruelty — mother and baby homes, institutions where children were tortured and abused.

But more and more we rebelled against it and demanded an end to it. We’ve grown in size, but also in confidence. We’ve gone from being oppressed to open, from intolerant to more inclusive. 

I’ve talked about my pride in being Irish, but I never felt prouder than the day we became the first country in the world to decide as a whole people, that gay citizens of Ireland should have the same rights as anyone else to consummate loving relationships in marriage.

In 1851, four years after the first wave of the Famine, our population was just over five million. It has taken us from then to now to get back to that figure. I think we should declare a national holiday in honour of that extraordinary achievement. 

We’ve lived through suppression and oppression, war and horror and famine and disease, to the point almost of extinction. And now we’re different. Thriving, achieving, building and rebuilding whenever we have to. 

Independent, with minds of our own. Capable — and we’ve proved it – of overcoming most challenges. Capable of making an impact wherever we go. We’re not just 5 million. In every sense of the phrase, we’re 5 million strong.