Could all the population of the world fit in Ireland? If they really had to

SURELY earth has not anything to show more fair than Our Beach, the strand which runs for mile upon glorious mile of sandy splendour, north from Crow Corner all the way to where the Porterhouse river meets the ocean. We call it Our Beach because this is where the people of Our Town go whenever they feel the call summoning them to where the breeze is salty and the background soundtrack is provided by the waves washing the shore.

There are other beaches, of course, just as short a drive away but this is the one which provides our instinctive destination as we look to spend time at the seaside. This is the only one to which we are called on autopilot, to commune with nature, to clear the lungs, to cleanse the spirit. This is the best one to provide a venue for a stiff walk, or a short stroll, or just bring a rug and sit on a dune to watch the rest of the beachcombing world go by.

Young Persephone, as is her left-of-field wont, came up with a curious question the other day as we enjoyed a saunter on the strand: ‘Da, could all the population of the world fit in Ireland?’

I have no idea what inspired the query. Maybe a discussion on homelessness in religion class slipped out of control. Maybe she had been watching a programme on immigration. Many of her questions lead to no clear answer: ‘Why are boys?’ or ‘What would I be if you had not met mother?’ or ‘Which is better, The Beatles or ABBA?’

But here was an opportunity for some solid mental arithmetic. Okay, could all the people inhabiting this planet squeeze on to an island the size of Ireland - that is the problem we have set ourselves. Let’s work out first how much room is required to accommodate the locals, around 100,000 of them in Our County – a nice round figure to conjure with.

Give each one of these 100,000 citizens a square metre to stand on, which seems quite generous. Yes, I know there are some tremendously overweight specimens whose girth might make them more than a metre in diameter. But on the other hand there are plenty of babies and you could easily squeeze eight or more of these infants on to a square metre.

So, let’s see if the 100,000 could be somehow accommodated on Our Beach, just for starters. The tide is out, so that gives us a little more room to play with. Pace it out there, young lady. The distance from dune to water’s edge is 50 metres, give or take, so that is our width for the purposes of the calculation.

Now, how long is Our Beach? Six old fashioned miles perhaps – give it nine kilometres. So each kilometre is 1000 metres long, by 50 wide. Be sure to allow the right number of noughts, that’s 50,000 people in one kilometre.

Hah! We would only need a couple kilometres for us lot from Our County and we make up what proportion of the population of the Republic of Ireland? If memory serves, there’s at least four million in the State, so round that up to five million.

(I can feel sweat beading on my brow and my eyes beginning to cross, but I persevere.)

So, what percentage of five million is the 100,000?

It is 10 per cent of one million. Divide by five and we may deduce that the population of Our County is two per cent of the population of the Republic.

If the two per cent needs 2 kilometres, then the five million would need 50 times that – an area 100 kilometres long by 50 metres wide. Now if humankind as a whole runs to seven billion people, then seven million would be 0.1 per cent or one thousandth of that – and I was so hoping to avoid decimals.

And the Republic’s five million would be less than the 0.1 per cent but we’ll round everything up at the end, which coming close. I hope.

Multiply 100 by 1,000 to get 100,000. Now round it up to, say, 130,000 for no good reason other than that my brain is on the point of collapse.

‘So all you need to corral everyone in the world together is a space 130,000 kilometres long by 50 metres wide. Does that answer your question, Persephone?’