bbc news有多少英国人有资格加入爱尔兰国籍

How many Britons are entitled to an Irish passport?

By Simon Maybin

BBC Radio 4, More or Less

有多少英国人持有爱尔兰护照？

赛门·迈宾

BBC 广播4台 More or Less

Following a surge in post-Brexit citizenship requests, it was widely claimed that a quarter of British people have Irish heritage. What's the true figure?

伴随着英国脱欧后的国籍请求潮，一种说法广为流传：四分之一的英国人有爱尔兰血统。真正的比例有多少呢？

Lots of news reports - including in the Daily Express, the Daily Mail, the Sun and even the BBC - have given a figure of one in four British people having Irish heritage.

很多新闻报道——包括《每日快报》、《每日邮报》、《太阳报》甚至英国广播电台在内的媒体报道——都出现了四分之一英国人有爱尔兰血统的说法。 That equates to 16 million people. But this turns out to be one of those statistics that may not be totally accurate.

四分之一英国人，换个说法，就是1600万英国人。不过，这个统计数据可能同其他不准确的数据一样不可信。

There was a question in the 2011 Census about ethnicity that gave people in England, Wales and Scotland the option of ticking a \2011年人口普查有一个关于民族的问题，英格兰、威尔士和苏格兰的公民可以选择在“爱尔兰白人”的方框打钩。

But only about one in 100 people ticked that box - a lot fewer than one in four. 但是100人里只有1人打钩——这个比例比四分之一要低多了。

In a roundabout way, however, the number is connected to that \box on the census form.

不过如果换个角度看，百分之一的比例是受人口普查表里的“爱尔兰白人”这样的表述影响的。

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It was first added as an option on the census form in 2001, the result of a push by Irish groups in Britain for their ethnicity to be formally recognised.

2001年起人口普查表里就增加了“爱尔兰白人”这一项。这是英国的爱尔兰人争取自身民族得到官方认可带来的结果。

And in early 2001, people with Irish links were encouraged by various advertising campaigns to \早在2001年，因为各种宣传运动，有爱尔兰血统的英国人都被鼓励去“打钩”并“做爱尔兰人，受国家认可”。

Around the same time, Guinness commissioned the polling company ICM to do a survey asking people if they had any Irish ancestry or saw themselves as Irish. One in four said yes, and that's where the figure actually comes from. It was reported by the BBC at the time.

也就在那时，吉尼斯委托民意调查公司ICM展开调研，问英国人他们是否有爱尔兰祖先或自视为爱尔兰人。四分之一的受访者给出了肯定回答，这就是开头数据的实际出处。当时BBC也报道了此事。

Of course, claiming Irish heritage in a survey isn't the same thing as being entitled to an Irish passport. So the \当然，在调查中表示自己有爱尔兰血统和拿到爱尔兰护照是两码事。所以四分之一这个数据没什么用。

At this point I have to own up to a personal interest in this story. With all the coverage around Britons applying for Irish passports, a friend pointed out that I might be entitled to one - something I'd never even thought about before. 说到这，我得承认，我觉得这事有点意思。现在申请爱尔兰护照的人满大街都是，我一个朋友说我或许也能搞到一本——我之前并未想过申请什么爱尔兰护照。 So do I have what it takes to be an Irish citizen? And how many others out there could also be latent Irish citizens?

所以我够条件加入爱尔兰国籍吗？潜在的能够加入爱尔兰国籍的英国人又有多少呢？

I put in a call in to Ireland's Citizens Information service and explained that my mother was born in Belfast but had never held an Irish passport. I was born in England and have also only ever had a British passport.

我给爱尔兰国籍信息服务处打了电话，我说我母亲是贝尔法斯特出生的，但是她从来没有爱尔兰护照。我在英格兰出生的，我也只有一张英国护照。 Is that enough to qualify? 这样够条件吗？

\“够啊。”服务处的莎伦·狄龙在电话那头说。

\would have an automatic right to Irish citizenship, which would then in turn entitle you to apply for and carry an Irish passport. Because your mother was born on the island of Ireland, she is recognised as an Irish citizen. She would be entitled to dual nationality - both British and Irish citizenship. That has been recognised and enshrined within the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.\

“你有选择加入爱尔兰国籍的自主权，你可以申请爱尔兰护照，我们会颁发你。你母亲在爱尔兰境内出生，她就被视作爱尔兰人。她可以拥有双重国籍，也就是英国和爱尔兰两国国籍。贝尔法斯特协议有条款对此作出承认和重视了。” The same rules apply if you have a grandparent born on the island of Ireland. 如果你祖母也是出生在爱尔兰境内，她也可以加入爱尔兰国籍。

There are a few other subtleties to the rules on getting Irish citizenship, including a change for people born after 2005.

加入爱尔兰国籍还有几个很细微的要求，包括2005年后对出生一事的改变。 But broadly speaking, to work out how many British people are actually entitled to an Irish passport, we need to know how many people with at least one Irish parent or grandparent there are in the UK. You might think that's just a matter of looking at data from the census, but there's a hitch.

但大致上讲，要弄清楚有多少英国人可以获得爱尔兰护照，我们得知道有多少英国人父母或者祖父母里至少有一方是爱尔兰人。有人可能觉得只要看看人口普查数据就行了，但这种方案面临一个难题。

\birthplace was asked,\says Bronwen Walter, emerita professor of Irish diaspora studies at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. \before and it hasn't been asked again.\

“除了1971年人口普查问过被调查者父母的出生地外，其余年份的人口普查都没有这一项，”剑桥镇安格利亚鲁金斯大学爱尔兰散居犹太人研究学荣誉教授布朗温·沃特尔说。“1971年前后的人口普查都不统计父母出生地情况。” Walter is one of the co-authors of a detailed study into the Irish diaspora commissioned by the Irish government.

受爱尔兰政府委托，沃特尔和别人一起写了本详细研究爱尔兰散居犹太人的书。 Using that 1971 information, Walter and her colleagues came up with a number for second-generation Irish immigrants in Britain, trying to account for things like birth rates and changes in the number of Irish immigrants marrying outside their community.

利用1971年人口普查的信息，沃特尔和她的同事得出了在英国的第二代爱尔兰移民的人口数，在此过程中他们试图加入诸如出生率和爱尔兰移民与外族通婚人数变动这类因素。

\would have at least one Irish-born parent, but it's quite likely to be higher,\says.

她说：“我觉得父母中至少有一方是爱尔兰人的英国人肯定有1700万，这个数也是够有争议的，但实际上可能不止这个数。

Calculating the number of third-generation immigrants is even harder, but the study authors were able to come up with an estimate using a longitudinal study.

计算第三代爱尔兰移民的人口数甚至还要更难，不过该学著的作者们可以用纵向研究法估计一个数值。

\one particular week in 1971,\exact people were brought out again to see what had changed for them and again 1991 and that has continued.\

“这是1971年人口普查样本的百分之一，是从1971年某一星期内出生的人中抽取出来的，”沃特尔解释道。“1981年人口普查时我们再次搬出这些人来看他们有什么变化。然后适1991年，如此继续下去。”