Ireland's Fast Breeders

It's very nice that there are so many initiatives now to honour older people in Ireland. I'm all for it. And yet, what Ireland should be triumphally celebrating is that it is a country bursting with the young.

Ireland is only one of two EU states which will see a rapid growth in the population aged between 20 and 34 in the next five years. The birth rate in Ireland, per 1000 of the population, is 12.2. That's the best in Europe. Bring out the champagne.

But bear in mind that against our fine dozen, the birth rate per 1000 in Afghanistan is 47.02; and in Albania, it is 15.08. And what have Aghanistan and Albania got in common? Yes, Islam.

As Mark Steyn demonstrates in his coruscating new book “America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It” - the starkest single fact about globalised demography is that the so-called “Christian West” (now often called the “post-Christian West”) is generally in decline: while all Islamic societies are on the increase.

The top most fertile countries in the EU are: Ireland, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and France.

But what percentage of births in these societies are Muslim? In France, Muslim fertility is five times higher than indigenous French fertility. Ten per cent of the population of France is Islamic - and 30 per cent in the cities.

This is not about xenophobia or racism. It is about demographics: the study of populations. Since the majority of Christian or post-Christian societies now have a declining population - with the exception of the U.S. - it follows that the rising population of Islam will take over.

The birth rates in Greece, Italy and Spain are catastrophic. You need 2.1 children per woman to maintain a stable population - that is, the same numbers in 1950, 1980 and 2010. But Greece now has 1.3 children per woman, Italy 1.2, Spain 1.1.

The Spanish birth rate is now halving with each passing generation. By 2050, Italy, Spain and Greece will be virtually empty - of traditional Spaniards, Italians and Greeks.

In terms of demographic justice - why shouldn't Islamic peoples from Turkey, North Africa and the Near East fill up the space left empty by the Mediterraneans? If the Latins can't be bothered to have children, then the Islamists are doing the job for them!

Why was there a war between the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims? Because the Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43 per cent to 31 per cent in the territory; while the Bosnian Muslims increased from 26 per cent to 44 per cent.

Nearer home, in the North of Ireland, the Catholic-Nationalists are outbreeding the Protestant-Unionists. Apologies to decent Northern Prods, but the iron law of survival is: who breeds, wins!

Throughout the 1980s, Ireland had her fair share of visiting foreigners sneering at the “Mediaeval” regulations which prohibited abortion, supported repeatedly by democratic vote.

But in the long run, the country peasant who knew - just from observing his livestock - that fertility means success for the species while abortion meant failure, was wiser in his instincts than all the progressives who preached “the woman's right to choose”. Presently we may have societies in which women have no choices whatsoever.

The name of the survival game is demographics.

Prosperity came to Ireland for a number of reasons: but a key component was a rising, youthful population. This is where you get ideas, energy, innovation, enterprise - a constant supply of young people. As G.K. Chesterton put it, so succinctly turning around a well-known aphorism: “Without people, vision perishes.”

Ireland free is Ireland fertile: so keep on breedin', folks!

Irish Independent. 18 November 2006