Yes, exactly.
The Irish diaspora has got around over the centuries. Irish-Americans who identify with their Irish ancestry also get around, and bring their version of St Patrick’s celebrations with them. Irishness has been commodified in the shape of Irish pubs you can buy the accoutrements for online, and the horrifying stomp fest that is Riverdance.
I’m one of the ones who left in the late 80s, in deep recession, when unemployment was at nearly 18% (think of that. Nearly one fifth of the working population didn’t have a job — we knew we had to leave from childhood), but returned, having lived in a lot of other places, including the US, the UK, France, the ME. All of my siblings but one have also spent years living in other places — at one point I was in the US, one sister was in China, one was in Tokyo, and one was in Greece. I have cousins in Guatemala, Edinburgh, Mumbai and Milan. The only one of my siblings who never left was the youngest, who was born in more prosperous times.
And of course Ireland is now attracting immigration. My son’s class has children from Rwanda, Poland, Nigeria, Canada, England, Spain, and Germany, and some new Ukrainians.
One of the big cultural differences I noticed while living in England was totally different attitudes to emigration, or spending long periods living abroad. Ireland has a long tradition of emigration, for obvious reasons, but it’s also seen as deeply normal to go and live overseas for long periods. I see on Mn (which I think reflects the attitudes I saw in RL) a sense of emigration as a much more unusual choice, often viewed as expressing dissatisfaction with the UK, or for better weather, or as a ‘selfish’ rejection of family.