Numbers game

WOULD someone please tell Fergus Finlay that the figure of 4,234,925 people mentioned in his column (Irish Examiner, February 13) represented the population of the Republic only, and not the population of the whole of Ireland, whose citizens flocked to Dublin to fill Croke Park for the recent Ireland v France rugby game.

Mr Finlay should also be made aware that the ravages of the Great Famine, which decimated our population, didn’t recognise partition.

Kieran McCarthy