We’ve taken over the world

ANYONE who has ever known anyone with an Irish wolfhound declares an Irish connection for St Patrick’s Day.

It’s great. With our international reputation as warm, friendly people who write great literature and make wonderful music and never riot at sporting events, having some Irish blood is a boast.

We are all Irish, to some degree — for every Irish person that lives in Ireland, there are apparently 15 of us elsewhere — the Irish diaspora is estimated at 100m people. Over centuries, we fly away, land somewhere else, and spread our Irishness around — my personal contribution to the diaspora is two children whose ethnic heritage is British-born Irish South African Indian. Or, on application forms, ‘other’.