Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: How many people live in Ireland?
The population of Ireland is about 6.3 million, but it is estimated that 50 to 80 million people around the world have Irish forebears, making the Irish diaspora one of the largest of any nation. Historically, emigration from Ireland has been the result of conflict, famine and economic issues. People of Irish descent are found mainly in English-speaking countries, especially Great Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia. There are also significant numbers in Argentina, Mexico and New Zealand. The United States has the most people of Irish descent, while in Australia those of Irish descent are a higher percentage of the population than in any other country outside Ireland. Many Icelanders have Irish and Scottish Gaelic forebears.
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. Under this legal definition, the Irish diaspora is considerably smaller—some 3 million persons, of whom 1.47 million are Irish-born emigrants. Given Ireland's population of 4.85 million, this is still a large ratio.
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.""
Dublin (; ) is the capital of, and largest city in, Ireland. It is on the east coast of Ireland, in the province of Leinster, at the mouth of the River Liffey, and is bordered on the south by the Wicklow mountains. It has an urban area population of 1,173,179, while the population of the Dublin Region (formerly County Dublin), , was 1,347,359, and the population of the Greater Dublin area was 1,904,806.
The Catholic Church in Ireland () is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Holy See. With 3.7 million members, it is the largest Christian church in Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland's 2016 census, 78% of the population identified as Catholic, which represents a decrease of 6% from 2011. By contrast, 45% of Northern Ireland identified as Catholic at the 2011 census, a percentage that is expected to increase in the coming years. The Primate of All Ireland is the Archbishop of Armagh. The Church is administered on an all-Ireland basis. The Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference is a consultative body for ordinaries in Ireland.
In the 2016 Irish census 78.3% of the population identified as Catholic in Ireland; numbering approximately 3.7 million people. Unlike Catholics in the United States, Ireland has seen a significant decline from the 84.2% who identified as Catholic in the 2011 census.
If all these motorways are opened, Ireland will have a ratio of 1 km of motorway to every 4,277.56 people (assuming a population of 4.5 million) by 2015. This compares to a current ratio of 1 km of motorway to every 6,017.32 people in Belgium. Although welcomed by many people, the construction of new motorways in Ireland has not been without controversy or opposition. In particular, the construction of the M3 motorway through the archaeologically significant Tara-Skryne valley (or Gabhra) near Tara has led to protests and calls for protection of its landscape from many, including Pat Wallace, Director of the National Museum of Ireland, and other prominent figures in Ireland and other countries. The Smithsonian Institution in the US has placed the Hill of Tara archaeological complex on its list of endangered cultural treasures as a result of the M3's construction.
The Jain community in Ireland is involved across different occupations. 
The Jains in Ireland are estimated to be around 1000 people. The majority live in and around Dublin but few families are spread across other part of countries including Northern Ireland. Jains in Ireland are well settled and respected community. Jain Samaj Ireland consists members of all different panths within Jainism.
According to US Census figures from 2000, 41,000,000 Americans claim to be wholly or partly of Irish ancestry, a group that represents more than one in five white Americans. Many African Americans are part of the Irish diaspora, as they are descended from Scots-Irish slave owners and overseers who arrived in America during the colonial era. The US Census Bureau's data from 2016 reveals that Irish ancestry is one of the most common reported ancestries reported (in the top 3 most common ancestries reported). Even though Irish immigration is extremely small relative to the scope of current migration, Irish ancestry is one of the most common ancestries in the United States because of the events that took place over a century ago.
While the famine was responsible for a significant increase in emigration from Ireland, of anywhere from 45% to nearly 85% depending on the year and the county, it was not the sole cause. The beginning of mass emigration from Ireland can be traced to the mid-18th century, when some 250,000 people left Ireland over a period of 50 years to settle in the New World. Irish economist Cormac Ó Gráda estimates that between 1 million and 1.5 million people emigrated during the 30 years between 1815 (when Napoleon was defeated in Waterloo) and 1845 (when the Great Famine began). However, during the worst of the famine, emigration reached somewhere around 250,000 in one year alone, with western Ireland seeing the most emigrants.
About 400 bird species have been recorded in Ireland. Many of these species are migratory. There are Arctic birds, which come in the winter, and birds such as the swallow, which come from Africa in the summer to breed. Many birds which are common residents in Britain and continental Europe are rare or unusual in Ireland, examples include the tawny owl, willow tit, marsh tit, nuthatch, and all woodpecker species except the recently established great spotted woodpecker. These are birds which do not move great distances and their absence may be due to Ireland's early isolation, but also Ireland's mild weather means early breeding and choice of best habitats which gives residents an advantage over visitors.
Those who stayed behind and tended to their farmlands suffered the consequences of the widespread crop failures brought about as a result of long periods of drought and diseases such as the cholera epidemic and the potato fungus which caused the Great Irish Famine of 1840. Mass starvation was widespread in Europe. Specifically, in Ireland, the Irish Potato Famine killed over one million people and created nearly two million refugees. These refugees went to Great Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and, of course, the Caribbean. One of the islands that many Irish families emigrated in large numbers to throughout this period continued to be Irish-friendly Puerto Rico. Moreover, being a Spanish colony, the island had a primarily Roman Catholic population which appealed to the Irish immigrants, as opposed to the Protestant majorities of most of the colonies of the British Empire and the United States at the time that were openly hostile to Irish immigration.
The Great Famine (, ), or the Great Hunger, was a period in Ireland between 1845 and 1849 of mass starvation, disease, and emigration. With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the Irish language was primarily spoken, the period was contemporaneously known as , loosely translated as the "hard times" (or literally, "The Bad Life"). The worst year of the period, that of "Black 47", is known as . During the famine, about one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%.
The predominant religion in the Republic of Ireland is Christianity, with the largest church being the Roman Catholic Church. The Irish constitution says that the state may not endorse any particular religion and guarantees freedom of religion.
After 1840, emigration from Ireland became a massive, relentless, and efficiently managed national enterprise. 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.
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. 
The Irish People are largely assimilated in most countries outside Ireland
The first waves of Irish immigrants took place between 1763 and 1880. when ten thousand Irish immigrants arrived on the Island. From 1800 to 1850, "10,000 immigrants from every county in Ireland" had settled in Prince Edward Island and represented 25% of the Island population by 1850.
The Irish were the most influential ethnic group regarding the initial waves of immigration to the United States and of Americanization. Newly arrived immigrants in American cities had a hard time avoiding the Irish. There was no way around the Irish for the newcomers, as the Irish were present in every aspect of American working-class society. Between 1840 and 1890, more than 3,000,000 Irish immigrants had entered the United States, and by 1900, about 5,000,000 of their first and second generations were settled in. There were more Irish living in the United States than in Ireland. Irish Americans played a major role in the newcomer's Americanization. In other words, identity in the United States emerged from dynamic relationships among ethnic groups, as well as from particular groups' own distinct history and traditions.
In terms of size and area, it is the largest county in Ulster and the fourth-largest county in all of Ireland. Uniquely, County Donegal shares a small border with only one other county in the Republic of Ireland – County Leitrim. The greater part of its land border is shared with three counties of Northern Ireland: County Londonderry, County Tyrone and County Fermanagh. This geographic isolation from the rest of the Republic has led to Donegal people maintaining a distinct cultural identity and has been used to market the county with the slogan "Up here it's different". While Lifford is the county town, Letterkenny is by far the largest town in the county with a population of 19,588. Letterkenny and the nearby city of Derry form the main economic axis of the northwest of Ireland. Indeed, what became the City of Derry was officially part of County Donegal up until 1610.
The earliest recorded Viking raids in Ireland occurred in 795. Over time, these raids increased in intensity, and they overwintered in Ireland for the first time in 840–841. In 841 a longphort was constructed at (Irish for "hurdled ford"), a site which would later develop into the city of Dublin. Longphorts were also established at other sites around Ireland, some of which developed into larger Viking settlements over time. The Viking population in Ireland was boosted in 851 with the arrival of a large group known as "dark foreigners" – a contentious term used to refer to the newly arrived Vikings, as opposed to the "fair foreigners", i.e. the Viking population which was resident in arrival prior to this influx. A kingdom in Viking Scotland was established by the mid ninth-century, and it exerted control over some of the Vikings in Ireland. By 853 a separate kingdom of Dublin had been set up which claimed control over all the Vikings in Ireland.
The earliest recorded Viking raids in Ireland occurred in 795. Over time, these raids increased in intensity, and they overwintered in Ireland for the first time in 840–841. Later in 841 a longphort was constructed at Áth Cliath (Irish for "hurdled ford"), a site which would later develop into the city of Dublin. Longphorts were also established at other sites around Ireland, some of which developed into larger Viking settlements over time. The Viking population in Ireland was boosted in 851 with the arrival of a large group known as "dark foreigners" – a contentious term usually considered to mean the newly arrived Vikings, as opposed to the "fair foreigners", i.e. the Viking population which was resident in arrival prior to this influx. A kingdom in Viking Scotland was established by the mid ninth-century, and it exerted control over some of the Vikings in Ireland. By 853 a separate kingdom of Dublin had been set up which claimed control over all the Vikings in Ireland.
There are two sovereign states in the isles: Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ireland, sometimes called "the Republic of Ireland", governs five sixths of the island of Ireland, with the remainder of the island forming Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, usually shortened to simply "the United Kingdom", which governs the remainder of the archipelago with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The Isle of Man and the two states of the Channel Islands, Jersey and Guernsey, are known as the Crown dependencies. They exercise constitutional rights of self-government and judicial independence; responsibility for international representation rests largely upon the UK (in consultation with the respective governments); and responsibility for defence is reserved by the UK. The United Kingdom is made up of four constituent parts: England, Scotland and Wales, forming Great Britain, and Northern Ireland in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Of these, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have "devolved" governments, meaning that each has its own parliament or assembly and is self-governing with respect to certain areas set down by law. For judicial purposes, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England and Wales (the latter being one entity) form separate legal jurisdiction, with there being no single law for the UK as a whole.
The earliest recorded Viking raids in Ireland occurred in 795. Over time, these raids increased in intensity, and they overwintered in Ireland for the first time in 840–841. Later in 841 a longphort was constructed at Áth Cliath (Irish for "hurdled ford"), a site which would later develop into the city of Dublin. Longphorts were also established at other sites around Ireland, some of which developed into larger Viking settlements over time. The Viking population in Ireland was boosted in 851 with the arrival of a large group known as "dark foreigners" – a contentious term usually considered to mean the newly arrived Vikings, as opposed to the "fair foreigners", i.e. the Viking population which was resident in arrival prior to this influx. A kingdom in Viking Scotland was established by the mid ninth-century, and it exerted control over some of the Vikings in Ireland. By 853 a separate kingdom of Dublin had been set up which claimed control over all the Vikings in Ireland.
There is great variation in how much the South Asian people are integrated into Irish society. Many people of South Asian descent are well-integrated and embrace the culture of Ireland. Many children of South Asian descent are born in Ireland or have come to Ireland at a very young age, and therefore learn the Irish language in schools (which is compulsory to children who have been living in the country before the age of 7). There are South Asian people who are up to 2nd and 3rd generation Irish-born. However, many South Asian people still maintain their ancestral customs and languages, and therefore many religious festivals (such as Diwali) are well-known and accepted within Ireland.
There are around 16,500 people of Chinese descent living in Ireland, largely concentrated in the cities of Limerick and Dublin.
There are now believed to be 30,000 Polish people living in Northern Ireland. This influx has been relatively recent, and has increased since Poland joined the European Union, with many coming on a short term basis for work. A recent report showed that in the Police Service of Northern Ireland's most recent recruitment drive, nearly 1,000 Polish people applied to become officers.
Ireland's trend of net emigration was reversed as the republic became a destination for immigrants. This significantly changed Irish demographics and resulted in expanding multiculturalism, particularly in the Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Galway areas. It was estimated in 2007 that 10% of Irish residents were foreign-born; most of the new arrivals were citizens of Poland and the Baltic states, many of whom found work in the retail and service sectors. A study conducted in 2006 found that many Irish people regarded immigration as an important factor for economic progress. Within Ireland, many young people left the rural countryside to live and work in urban centres.
Many people in Ireland believe that the growing consumerism during the boom years eroded the country's culture, with the adoption of American capitalist ideals. While Ireland's historical economic ties to the UK had often been the subject of criticism, Peader Kirby argued that the new ties to the US economy were met with a "satisfied silence". Nevertheless, voices on the political left have decried the "closer to Boston than Berlin" philosophy of the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat government. Writers such as William Wall, Mike McCormick, and Gerry Murphy have satirised these developments. Growing wealth was blamed for rising crime levels among youths, particularly alcohol-related violence resulting from increased spending power. However, it was also accompanied by rapidly increased life expectancy and very high quality of life ratings; the country ranked first in "The Economist"'s 2005 quality of life index, dropping to 12th by 2013.