A little over half a century ago, a serious book called The Vanishing Irish highlighted "how imminent is the danger of extinction" of the Irish nation, whose people could soon "be found like the vanished Mayans only in mausoleums". Yesterday, the census data published by the Central Statistics Office showed that, at 4.2 million, the population is well on the way to being twice as large as it was in the 1950s.
The figures also show that the society we now inhabit is not just bigger but more complex, more diverse, and, in some respects, more fragmented. They raise the stark question of whether the capacity of our collective institutions has grown at anything like the rate needed to keep pace with our changing demographics.
The increased complexity of Irish society is evident at every level. One person in 10 living here was not born in Ireland. (The number of Polish residents, for example, increased 30-fold between 2002 and 2006.) There is more religious diversity, with big increases in the numbers of people of the Islamic and Orthodox faiths and people of no religion constituting the second largest group. We even live in more places. The figures reflect the burgeoning of a commuter society, with the cities of Cork and Limerick actually losing population, while regional towns are growing rapidly.
The one million families living here now come in a wider range of shapes and sizes, with big increases in the numbers of one-parent families, of divorced and separated people, of childless couples, of same-sex couples and of cohabiting couples. The number of children living with cohabiting parents has more than trebled in 10 years. The era of the standard nuclear family is over.
It is not at all obvious, however, that our political system has caught up with this changing society. The census figures may indicate a growing, dynamic society, but they also highlight the challenges of change. Facilities that are crucial to the integration of our foreign-born population remain woefully inadequate. We are still fortunate to have a relatively young population, with almost three million people of working age, but ours is still an ageing society and we are ill-equipped to cater for the needs of the almost half a million people over 65.
The implications of increased religious diversity for our overwhelmingly denominational education system have scarcely been considered. The rise in the number of cohabiting couples has not been reflected in legislation for civil partnerships. The vacancy rate of 15 per cent of houses and apartments raises questions about housing policy. It might be good news that the share of the population living in the greater Dublin area has declined slightly, but the regional balance is still poor.
The census tells us that ours is a vigorous enough society to keep its own people at home and attract others from abroad. It also tells us that we are in a demographic boom time with a huge bulge in the working, tax-paying population. We must use this opportunity to meet the challenges of a changing Ireland.