Irishness among top 10 nationalities

In fact, Ireland has broken into the top 10 nationalities in the world, judging from the Henley & Partners - Kochenov Quality of Nationality Index (QNI), which provides a comprehensive ranking of the quality of nationalities worldwide.

Under the QNI rating system Ireland had the 9th best quality of nationality in the world in 2017, joint with Switzerland, and was up from 11th place in 2016.

Top of the nationality pops was France, followed, in descending order, by Germany, Iceland, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Ireland/Switzerland and Austria.

The United Kingdom, meanwhile, dropped from 12th to 13th over the year with Brexit considered as a contributory factor in the slippage.

Its authors explained: "The 3rd edition of the QNI continues to interrogate the quality of British nationality against the looming specter of Brexit. A ‘hard Brexit’ would see the UK losing its settlement and work rights in 30 of the world’s leading states, overwhelmingly impairing the quality of its nationality.

"But it could also increase tension and competition between the UK and the rest of Europe and potentially destabilize the nationalities of EU member states that had hitherto enjoyed close ties to the UK.

“The latest results from the QNI seem to anticipate this lose–lose scenario. Both the value of European nationality overall and the value of UK nationality in particular are in gradual decline, especially in relation to faster-growing economies such as China, the UAE, and the US, whose nationalities continue to increase in value each year.

"Having said that, however, Europe remains the undisputed global leader in terms of nationality quality, and emerging economies would need an entire century of unchecked success to unseat it from this position. Accordingly, any loss will be felt much more acutely by an increasingly isolated Britain in the case of a hard Brexit.”