Apparently there are 43 million people in the United States who claim Irish ancestry. So if we believe that, Irish Americans outnumber Irish people by over eight to one. The latest Irish census puts the population at 5.5 million. We are all familiar with the Irish Famine in the 19th Century. Now apparently the Irish population before that disaster was 8.5 million and following the deaths of over one million from starvation and the emigration of at least another million if not