The Irish people are mainly of Celtic and Norman origin with history of some Anglo-Saxon settlers during failed English plantations(successful in Northern Ireland only). Today, the country has many minorities including substantial numbers of people from [[Poland]], [[China]] and [[Nigeria]]. Traditionally the language of Irish (Gaelic) was the primary one on the island but after centuries of British colonialism by the end of the 19th century it was endangered and was confined to very small,peripheral regions in the West of the country as it continues to today following an unsuccessful attempt to revive the language by Ireland's government. Britain tried to secure unity with Ireland by using multiple large scale plantations of Scottish Protestant settlers. All of these where failures due to the native Irish violently opposing such settlers,the only success was the Ulster plantation which is the reason for the large Protestant population in Northern Ireland and the partitioning of the country. There is still sectarian conflict in this part of the island.
During the 1840s a disease known as the potato blight spread through the nations potato crop (most Irish where were totally reliant on the potatopotatoes). The English did not help and the blight caused mass starvation and disease. In the end about 1 million had died and about 1 million had emigrated. The famine was a major blow to the nation,especially to the native language (Irish) and eventually the population would fall from over 8 million before the famine to under 3 million in the mid 20th century(before rising again). The nation continued to be a major source of immigrants to the United States and today over 30 million Americans report Irish ancestry making it the second largest ancestry in the United States only behind German.
Irish writers(many Anglo-Irish) such as Swift, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Burke, O'Casey, Wilde, Joyce, Yeats, Shaw, and Beckett have made major contributions to English literature over the past 300 years.
*Population: 4,470,700 (2010 est.).
*Population breakdown 0–14 years (20.4%), 15–24 years (15%), 25–34 years (17%), 35–44 years (14%), 45–54 years (12%), 55–64 years (10%), 65 years and over (11%)
*Population growth rate: 2.61% (2008 est.).
*Ethnic groups: Irish84.5%, with English minorityother white 9.8%, Asian 1.9%, black 1.4%, mixed and other 0.9%, unspecified 1.6% (2011 est.).
*Religions: Roman Catholic 86.8%; No religion 4.4%; Church of Ireland 3%; Islam 0.8%; Presbyterian 0.6%; Orthodox 0.5%; Methodist 0.3%; other 2.1%
*Languages: English, Irish (Gaelic).