Descendants.

Leprechauns have a wanderlust, and they breed like rabbits.

Why did they all flee Ireland??That is the real question!;)

we populated like crazy!! take the famine, 2 million emmigrated, mostly to USA, England and Canada. back then people had huge families, and more ppl were likly to survive to adulthood in other countries. fan that out over couple of generations and bam you have a huge irish community abroad! and everyone wants to be irish so they all lay claims to it :D

I think they were fruitful and multiplied. :)

Ancestors. I love how if you're Mexican, or Chinese, or Japanese, that's what you are that's your heritage it's where you came from even if you were born in the US. However it seems like people don't want caucasian people to have that with the countries of origin they have. My mom does a lot of genealogical work and lots of my ancestors came from Ireland, however I'm a quarter Greek too. So that's my claim of being "part Irish"

Oh! I see, you think I'm "claiming" to be part Irish? I don't "claim", I state Facts. Not my fault I don't know much about my Irish roots :(

Read up about the Potato famine and the penal colonies in Australia. Mass exodus from Ireland since 1790, and since then we have multiplied ten fold and then some and still doing it too! An Irish daughter had not been home for over five years. Upon her return, her Father cussed her. 'Where have ye been all this time? Why did ye not write to us, not even a line? Why didn't ye call? Can ye not understand what ye put yer old Mother thru?' The girl, crying, replied, 'Sniff, sniff....Dad....I became a prostitute...' 'Ye what!!? Out of here, ye shameless harlot! Sinner! You're a disgrace to this Catholic family.' 'OK, Dad-- as ye wish. I just came back to give mum this luxurious fur coat, title deed to a ten bedroom mansion plus a $5 million savings certificate. For me little brother, this gold Rolex. And for ye Daddy, the sparkling new Mercedes limited edition convertible that's parked outside plus a membership to the country club......................... (takes a breath)............. and an invitation for ye all to spend New Years Eve on board my new yacht in the Riviera and... ....' 'Now what was it ye said ye had become?' says Dad. Girl, crying again, 'Sniff, sniff....a prostitute Daddy! Sniff, sniff.' 'Oh! Be Jesus! Ye scared me half to death, girl! I thought ye said a Protestant. Come here and give yer old Dad a hug.'

Over time?????

we get around!

The great Irish Emigration when britain moved in, and when the poratoe famine hit. Not to mention that half the people that claim to be Irish like myself are only part Irish.

Because they "do it like rabbits"

Half of them are only Irish during this time if year!!! :o)

irish immigrants came, and had lots of sex. i'm sure many americans are of irish decent.

The Irish, they love the act of fornication, they do. And tonight, as the green beer flows and they all get tanked, they will go home, get lucky, lucky, lucky and this time next year we will have another Irish population boom, love. Plus Irish are so much fun that I think a lot of people claim to be Irish when they really aren't. It just sounds so Magically Delicious to be Irish!!

Immigration, of course. Ever hear of the "Potato Famine" in Ireland? LOTS of Irish emigrated to various countries. Those immigrants had babies here, some with mixed blood. THOSE babies had babies, some with mixed blood. And so on. If you are PART any nationality, you can claim it. One of my 2nd Great Grandfather on my mother's side was from Sweden. We believe my grandfather's family on my mother's side was from France. One of my 6th Great Grandfathers from that side is from Ireland. One of my 5th Great Grandfathers from my father's side came from Germany. One of my 9th Great Grandfathers from my father's side came from England, and further back (26th) from France. Seems most of my other relatives have been here (the US) from the late 1700s to mid 1800s. I probably can't claim anything but America, since most were so far back in my ancestry, but then again, why can't I claim French, German, Swedish, and Irish ancestry? :-P (You just have to look back to find out. ;-) )

Irish decent?

It was st. patty's day and some drunken Irish guy in a pub said to one of his friends, "Because it is st patty's day and we all know that EVERYONE is Irish on st patty's day I will buy you a drink." They both drank until they fell off of their bar stools that day, and now every time the friend drinks (which seems to be more and more lately) he thinks he's irish again even though it's not st patty's day. Because he's almost always drunk, he's almost always irish now. This happens all over the place all the time and no one realizes it.

IMO, they are not all full Irish; they may have descended from the Irish but are neither full-blooded nor ever stepped foot in Ireland!

People like to say their Irish cause the Irish are generally well liked in the World from Iran to the USA and back to Syria. However some places don't like the Irish eg Austailia, Israel, parts of England, Serbia...... As a race Irish people love to talk and interact with outsiders this makes them popular, their culuture is also unique and most of the world sympathise with their struggle for freedom Also they all speach English as a first language (dont say this to them it will piss them off, as they all claim to speak Irish but less than 10% actually do, the rest of them justb no the basics like "Kiss my ass" and "Your an ejeit", if you here a word sounding like AW-MAD-DAWN their calling you an idiot, ask one of them to speak Irish and I bet u'll hear it

This is due to Irish ancestry. A lot of the 'Irish away from Ireland' are the Irish Americans. I always just take nationality to be the country you are born in, regardless of where your parents or grandparents were born, but Americans seem to include their parents nationalities with their own, such as Irish American, Italian American etc etc

Maybe were just that little bit more horny then other countries! hehe

Well it's mainly started during the famine. Now I know many irish people left Ireland before this, but when the famine came the amount of people emmigrating to america and england and elsewhere was huge, even after it remained large. It only really began to decease in the 80's. Now all these Irish people in other countries married and reproduced, and they did so to and so so on. Everyone loves to be irish, so even if your great grandad was Irish, well heck...your Irish too! oh and as an additional... Theres nearly 5 million people in ireland now!

the answer is in the history of the isle from the time of the famine in 1840 till say the 90's there was widespread emigration this diaspora is responsible for the, you say, 80 million Irish , in the famine 2 million left and it continued if they all had 2 kids or more through the generations i don't think that's an unrealistic and I'm proud as an Irishman for others to want to be Irish and proud of their roots