Next month the British census will include an Irish category in the ethnic group question for the first time.
Under the section "white", the census will offer the options "British" or "Irish" or "any other white background". The formal recognition of an Irish cultural background, regardless of whether the person was actually born in Ireland, represents a significant landmark in the definition of ethnicity in Britain.
Not only will the census accurately (as far as that is possible) count the number of people in Britain claiming Irish ethnicity, it will also enable better monitoring of the social and economic needs of one of Britain's largest ethnic groups. Just ticking the box marked "Irish" will mean that, in 18 months' time when the statistics are published, Irish organisations will be able to draw on more public funds as members of a formally recognised ethnic group.
For Irish organisations such as the Haringey Community Care Centre in north London, the significance of the "Irish" box means extra funding for essential services.
The group seeks to raise awareness of the range of health, housing and social needs of marginalised Irish people and hopes that when the census statistics are published it will attract European and larger government grants.
Statistics have already helped the Irish in Haringey. The centre has secured the lowering of the age criteria for access to council daycare centres and services for elderly Irish people as recognition that the Irish in Britain experience health problems at an earlier age than other ethnic groups.
Instead of waiting until they are aged 65 and 60, men and women can now take up daycare at the age of 55. But the Irish section in the census will also provide a "positive psychological impact" for Irish people, according to the centre's manager, Deirdre Cregan.
"The census will raise self esteem. There are two groups of Irish: those who are totally assimilated and others who are more radical and have no natural belief about their Irish identity in a formal situation. Older people prefer not to be recognised, probably because of the bad experiences they had here in the 1950s and there is a certain ambivalence among them about the census. They don't want to be seen as an ethnic group, they see ethnicity as negative.
"But this could be the first time they have a positive experience of speaking out," Ms Cregan says. Yet for others studying the Irish in Britain, the Irish element to the ethnic group question introduces confusion and may result in a serious undercounting of people claiming Irish ethnicity.
That is the preliminary finding put forward by Dr Bronwen Walter, director of the Irish 2 Project studying the Irish in Britain, following discussions about the census with second-generation Irish people in five British locations.
Dr Walter and fellow researcher, Prof Mary Hickman, of the University of North London, welcome the inclusion of the Irish as a separate ethnic group in the census. But during their research they found that people of Irish descent or parentage might not tick the "Irish" box because they believe it is asking them about nationality rather than ethnicity.
"British is not an ethnic category but a national one," says Dr Walter. "People born in Britain to Irish parents are British by nationality, so naturally assume this is the correct answer. Moreover, the Irish are the only group being asked to decide whether they are British or not. There is no possibility of combining Irish and British as there is with the other two large groups who are already given a combined label in the question - under the headings `Asian British' and `Black British' - and no halfway house for those who have one Irish and one English or Welsh parent."
Among some of the comments recorded in their census workshops, the researchers found that almost everyone failed to read the instruction asking them to indicate their cultural background. When this was pointed out a large number changed their minds and ticked the "Irish" box.
Dr Walter and Prof Hickman warn that the cultural background definition of the ethnic question must be made clear to respondents, otherwise Britain's Irish community could miss an opportunity to have its voice heard. "If there is serious undercounting of the Irish, as seems likely at the moment, it will mean that the Irish population is still not fully recognised," they say. "Statistics will be wrongly interpreted by service providers and the option may be removed in 2011 because it appears not to be taken up."
Haringey Community Care Centre Census Week helpline: 020 7281-7751 (open April 30th to May 4th).
rdonnelly@irish-times.ie