evidence: In the UK census of 2001, close to 700,000 people claimed to have been born in Ireland, 12.1% of the population of Ireland at that time. In the UK census of 2011, a smaller figure, around 450,000, claimed to have been Irish-born, though in the same year, probably due to the banking crisis and subsequent recession, emigration from Ireland to the UK rose by 25%. In 2018 the amount of Irish-born people in the UK fell again, to less than 400,000, the average age of this group being 53. But what of the second-generation Irish? Kevin Kenny, Professor of History at Boston College and author of Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction, states that ‘70 million people worldwide claim Irish descent.’ Certainly, if the recent rush in the UK to get Irish passports is anything to go by, the figure for non Ireland-born Irish is pretty high, with the highest concentration most likely to be in London. According to the UK think-tank The Runnymede Trust, there are 6 million second-generation Irish people in Britain, around 11% of the population and more than the population of Ireland itself.