Europe got more Irish in 2014. In fact it’s slowly been turning Irish for some time, There’s a long way to go before we take over though…
There were 10% more Irish in the world in 2014 than there were in 2013. This growth rate was the highest in Europe, as it has been for many years.
There are two reasons for this promising trend to European Domination;
1 More Births Than Anyone Else
According to Eurostat, we had 14.4 births last year for every 1,000 residents — much higher than the 10.1 European average and almost double the sluggish Portugese who were bottom of the table with just 7.9 per 1,000.
2 Fewer Deaths Than Anyone Else
We also had the EU’s second lowest death rate, losing just 6.4 people for every 1,000 residents — only marginally more than top-placed Cyprus with a rate of 6.2.
As a comparison, death rates across the EU averaged 9.7. The higest rate was in Bulgaria with 15.1. Others with high death rates were Latvia (14.3), Lithuania (13), Hungary (12), and Romania (12).
Only 0.9% of the EU is Irish so we still have a long way to go, but we are slowly taking over!
