There was a time when Irish millionaires were as rare as holy water in an Orange Lodge. Now they're to be found in their thousands, replacing the star dust that the angels were said to have sprinkled all over that "little piece of Heaven that fell from out the skies one day."

According to a recent World Wealth Report, there are now 15,000 of them and their numbers keep on growing.

The same report found that there are 165,000 millionaires in Canada. Statisticians may care to compare the relevancy of the numbers, but a rough guesstimate would indicate that the Irish crowd are doing quite nicely, as a percentage of populations and on a straight dollar (US) versus euro basis.

Other figures show that there were 2.22 million millionaires in North America who owned 29 per cent of the total wealth held by the world's estimated 7.1 million "high-net-worth individuals".

These are merely statistics.

After that come the billionaires.

The first trillionaire is still a long way off.

And there is the sad realization that a million isn't what it used to be.

Eartha Kitt, in "New Faces of 1951", sang about her wants, among which she numbered "an old fashioned millionaire". In those days being a millionaire counted for something. Today's new fashioned ones simply don't compare.

How does one become an Irish millionaire? Start early. Learn to count.

A h-aon is a h-aon sin a dó,
A h-aon is a dó sin a trí,
A h-aon is a trí sin a ceathar,
A h-aon is a ceathar sin a cúig…

And so on, and so on.