By NiallO’Dowd

THE 1980 U.S. Census report was a landmark document which first revealed that 40 million Americans were proud enough of their Irish ancestry to state that fact.

The figures were a major surprise. The general estimates up to that point had been that about 20 million Americans were of Irish ancestry. In his seminal book The Making of the President about John. F. Kennedy, Theodore White had estimated there were only 14 million Irish Americans.

“The figures are surprisingly high,” Edward Fernandez, head of the population division of the U.S. Census told me at that time, adding jokingly that the census was “not taken around St. Patrick’s Day.”

The 1980 census was the first to ask the ethnicity question, and pretty much every discussion on Irish America since that time has at some time cited those census figures.

Back in 1983, in my newspaper in San Francisco, which first broke the census figures story, I wrote, “With such a huge future to work with the potential for building a strong Irish American consciousness cannot be overstated. The message of the census to the Irish is that, ‘we’re out there folks and we are as strong as ever.’”

I’d like to think that was a message that resonated in the following decades which saw such a huge Irish American revival in every field, from arts to politics to music to community growth.

Now all that is at risk. There was also another figure in 1980 which created interest -– the census showed there were over 250,000 Irish-born living in America. The number was way down from the 2 million who were living in the U.S. in 1890, but it was still a significant figure.

Interesting to note that in the 2005 U.S. Interim Census figure, the Irish number of 40 million is essentially unchanged. Last year 34.6 million stated they were of Irish ancestry while 5.2 million were of Scotch Irish ancestry for a round total of 40 million.

What has changed dramatically, however, is the number of Irish-born U.S. residents. Twenty years later in 2000 that number had dropped to 156,000. Now, five years later, the number is down to 128,000, according to the mid-decade survey released last week.

Effectively the Irish-born numbers have halved in 25 years and continue to go down. It is not hard to see where all of this will end up.

What we are looking at within the next generation is the effective ending of the Irish-born presence in America unless something is done about allowing immigration to the U.S. from Ireland.

If you don’t think that is important in this community, just look to every major Irish neighborhood and organization in this country and count the number of Irish-born who play leading roles. From the neighborhoods such as Yonkers/Woodlawn in New York to the county associations to political lobby groups, Irish-born are at the head or near the top of almost every organization.

If the Irish-born disappear so too will a lot of our Irish neighborhoods and community groups. It’s that simple folks.

Obviously what has happened is that many Irish-born emigrants from the 1920-1950s generations have passed on. Also, because since 1965 the Irish have huge difficulty coming to America, there are not as many people replacing them. Last year only 2,000 green cards out of 1.2 million were given to Irish-born — a pathetic number when you think about it.

Of course, there is now the issue of the Irish illegals as well. The vast majority of them are not being counted in the official census, but whatever growth there has been in Irish-born numbers has come mainly from illegals being made legal either through marriage or work authorization.

The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) has been leading the fight to change the immigration laws, and has created a powerful lobby over the past nine months.

In light of these figures their work is more important than ever. If we want to see the death of the Irish-born community in America, the numbers are clearly there for all of us to ponder.

For Ireland and America that would be terrible news. ILIR simply must succeed.