Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: How large is the Irish diaspora?
After 1840, emigration from Ireland became a massive, relentless, and efficiently managed national enterprise.[3] In 1890 40% of Irish-born people were living abroad. By the 21st century, an estimated 80 million people worldwide claimed some Irish descent, which includes more than 36 million Americans who claim Irish as their primary ethnicity. [4]
Many Irish people were also transported to the island of Montserrat, to work as indentured servants, exiled prisoners or slaves. Unlike African chattel slaves, the majority of Irish labourers who were sent to Montserrat did so by personal choice although they were tricked into doing so by the promise of payment and land of which they did not receive. Some were exiled by the English Oliver Cromwell due to the large Irish population and their attempted rebellion on 17 March 1768. To this day, the Island celebrates St. Patrick's Day as a public holiday to commemorate the event. People of Irish descent also feature strongly in Latin America, especially in Argentina and important minorities in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. In 1995, President Mary Robinson reached out to the "70 million people worldwide who can claim Irish descent". Today the diaspora is believed to contain an estimated 80 million people.
There are also large Irish communities in some mainland European countries, notably in Spain, France and Germany. Between 1585 and 1818, over half a million Irish departed Ireland to serve in the wars on the Continent, in a constant emigration romantically styled the ""Flight of the Wild Geese"" and, before that, in the 'Flight of the Earls', just before the Plantation of Ulster. In the early years of the English Civil War, a French traveller remarked that the Irish "are better soldiers abroad than at home". Later, Irish brigades in France and Spain fought in the Wars of the Spanish and Austrian Succession and the Napoleonic Wars. In the words of Field Marshal The 1st Duke of Wellington, the Irish-born 'Iron Duke', a notable representative of the Irish military diaspora, "Ireland was an inexhaustible nursery for the finest soldiers".
Due to large-scale emigration from Ireland, Irish culture has a global reach and festivals such as Saint Patrick's Day and Halloween are celebrated all over the world. Irish culture has to some degree been inherited and modified by the Irish diaspora, which in turn has influenced the home country.
The phrase remains in common use, both colloquially and in the media, in reference to recent immigration and assimilation in Ireland, and to some degree about some of the Irish diaspora (for example in "The Irish Times", Senator Jim Walsh, Liam Twomey, or "Irish Emigrant") or in conversation discussing the relationship between the cultural heritage of the Irish diaspora and the Irish in Ireland. While still echoing its original meaning, contemporary usage of the phrase usually takes a more open interpretation of assimilation or, in the case of the diaspora, the maintenance of Irish heritage.
Feerick founded Ireland Reaching Out a volunteer-led, community-based National Irish Diaspora Programme in 2009 with the stated goal of connecting people of the Irish Diaspora to their ancestral roots in Ireland. Feerick and Irish economist David McWilliams successfully pitched the idea to the Irish government in 2010. Ireland Reaching Out welcomed its first returning group in July 2011. In 2017, Ireland XO volunteers across Ireland welcomed home 300 returning Diaspora groups. Feerick has noted how the movement to reconnect the Irish diaspora to their ancestral origins can function in a tripartite revival for Ireland: social, cultural and economic. The Ireland XO Programme is funded by the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, the Heritage Council of Ireland, Google and the Irish Lottery. Ireland XO operates across Ireland north and south.
Emigration from Ireland in the 19th century contributed to the populations of England, the United States, Canada and Australia, in all of which a large Irish diaspora lives. , 4.3 million Canadians, or 14% of the population, are of Irish descent, while around one third of the Australian population has an element of Irish descent. 
List of expatriate Irish populations Irish Travellers Irish military diaspora List of Ireland-related topics Irish place names in other countries The Gathering Ireland 2013 Liverpool Irish Coatbridge Irish Against the Wind (TV series) EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum
The Irish military diaspora refers to the many people of either Irish birth or extraction (see Irish diaspora) who have served in overseas military forces, regardless of rank, duration of service, or success.
A specific 19th-century example is the Irish diaspora, beginning in the mid-19th century and brought about by "An Gorta Mór" or "the Great Hunger" of the Irish Famine. An estimated 45% to 85% of Ireland's population emigrated to areas including Britain, the United States of America, Canada, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. The size of the Irish diaspora is demonstrated by the number of people around the world who claim Irish ancestry; some sources put the figure at 80 to 100 million.
People of the Irish diaspora who were not born in Ireland but who identify as Irish are sometimes labelled as Plastic Paddies.[18]
Irish immigration to New Zealand during the Irish diaspora in the nineteenth and early twentieth was predominantly from the region of Ulster. Immigration from the region of Leinster however, was quite common to New Zealand from 1840 towards 1852. However immigration during the Irish diaspora from Connaught was uncommon, making up a small percentage of Irish immigration in New Zealand.
However, the usage of Irish diaspora is generally not limited by citizenship status, thus leading to an estimated (and fluctuating) membership of up to 80 million persons—the second and more emotive definition. The Irish Government acknowledged this interpretation—although it did not acknowledge any legal obligations to persons in this larger diaspora—when Article 2 of the Constitution of Ireland was amended in 1998 to read "[f]urthermore, the Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage."
The Irish diaspora (Irish: Diaspóra na nGael) refers to Irish people and their descendants who live outside Ireland.
As recently as the second half of the nineteenth century, the majority of Irish emigrants spoke Irish as their first language. This had social and cultural consequences for the cultivation of the language abroad, including innovations in journalism. The language continues to be cultivated abroad by a small minority as a literary and social medium.[5] The Irish People are largely assimilated in most countries outside Ireland
A significant portion of the populations of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand is composed of people whose ancestors were from one of the "Celtic nations". This concerns the Irish diaspora most significantly (see also Irish American), but to a lesser extent also the Welsh diaspora and the Cornish diaspora.
Akenson then moved more exclusively to the study of the Irish diaspora, and now, having written well over a dozen books on Irish history and Irish migration, is considered "the most distinguished scholar of the history of the Irish diaspora." He became known to many Irish-American scholars in 1984 and 1985 when in his "The Irish In Ontario" (1984) and "Being Had: Historians, Evidence, and the Irish in North America" (1985) he controversially called for (1) historians of Irish immigration in North America to make use of the better-documented Canadian data on Irish immigration and (2) historians to recognize that the long practice of ignoring Irish Protestant migration, particularly in the nineteenth century, was at best a foolish mistake and at worst a case of scholarly bigotry. Having called into question many, if not all, of the most-dearly clung to assumptions of traditional scholars of Irish immigration in America, an all-out scholarly war ensued, and Akenson was persuaded to make his case once again in 1996 with "The Irish Diaspora: A Primer". In this latter work, and indeed as in all of his books, Akenson pulls no punches.
The Government of Ireland defines the Irish diaspora as all persons of Irish nationality who habitually reside outside of the island of Ireland. This includes Irish citizens who have emigrated abroad and their children, who are Irish citizens by descent under Irish law. It also includes their grandchildren in cases where they were registered as Irish citizens in the Foreign Births Register held in every Irish diplomatic mission.[7] Under this legal definition, the Irish diaspora is considerably smaller—some 3 million persons, of whom 1.47 million are Irish-born emigrants. [8] Given Ireland's population of 4.85 million, this is still a large ratio.[9]
The Irish diaspora mainly settled in English-speaking countries, chiefly Britain and North America. In some instances the Irish language was retained for several generations. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to which the Irish went in large numbers, and those emigrants came in the 19th century from areas where Irish was already in retreat.
About 10% of the population of Saskatchewan during 1850–1930 were Irish-born or of Irish origin. Cottrell (1999) examines the social, economic, political, religious, and ideological impact of the Irish diaspora on pioneer society and suggests that both individually and collectively, the Irish were a relatively privileged group. The most visible manifestations of intergenerational Irish ethnicity - the Catholic Church and the Orange Order - served as vehicles for recreating Irish culture on the prairies and as forums for ethnic fusion, which integrated people of Irish origin with settlers of other nationalities. The Irish were thus a vital force for cohesion in an ethnically diverse frontier society, but also a source of major tension with elements that did not share their vision of how the province of Saskatchewan should evolve.
Gaelic diaspora would be understood as referring to the Gaelic-speaking parts of either the Irish diaspora or the Scottish diaspora.
The Irish language was carried abroad in the modern period by a vast diaspora, chiefly to Britain and North America, but also to Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.
The first large movements began in the 17th century, largely as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, which saw many Irish sent to the West Indies. Irish emigration to the United States was well established by the 18th century, and was reinforced in the 1840s by thousands fleeing from the Famine. This flight also affected Britain. Up until that time most emigrants spoke Irish as their first language, though English was establishing itself as the primary language. Irish speakers had first arrived in Australia in the late 18th century as convicts and soldiers, and many Irish-speaking settlers followed, particularly in the 1860s. New Zealand also received some of this influx. Argentina was the only non-English-speaking country to receive large numbers of Irish emigrants, and there were few Irish speakers among them.
The term is often used in particular for people all over the world (in America especially in areas where a large number of Irish diaspora settled) who ostensibly base their business, political, or social practices on like of or admiration for Irish models. In some cases, Hibernophilia represents an individual's preference of Irish culture to their own, or the belief that Irish culture is superior, or appreciation of Irish history.
The Irish diaspora consists of Irish emigrants and their descendants in countries such as the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and nations of the Caribbean such as Jamaica and Barbados. These countries all have large minorities of Irish descent, who in addition form the core of the Catholic Church in those countries.
The term Irish diaspora is open to many interpretations. The diaspora, broadly interpreted, contains all those known to have Irish ancestors, i.e., over 100 million people, which is more than fifteen times the population of the island of Ireland, which was about 4.6 million in 2011. It has been argued the idea of an Irish diaspora, as distinct from the old identification of Irishness with Ireland itself, was influenced by the perceived advent of global mobility and modernity. Irishness could now be identified with dispersed individuals and groups of Irish descent. But many of those individuals were the product of complex ethnic intermarriage in America and elsewhere, complicating the idea of a single line of descent. "Irishness" might then rely primarily on individual identification with an Irish diaspora.[6]
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland that are both Catholic and Irish. Irish Catholics have a large diaspora, which includes more than 10 million Americans.