Ireland granted the second highest level of citizenships in the EU during 2014 in proportion to the country’s population, according to new figures from Eurostat.

The rate of new citizenships granted here was 4.6 per thousand persons, just behind Luxembourg on 5.8 and slightly ahead of Sweden on 4.5.

Just over 21,100 non-EU persons became Irish citizens in 2014.

Ruth Deasy of the EU office in Dublin says the majority of our new “Irish” are from Nigeria.

Ms Deasy said: “Ireland is up there with Sweden, Spain and Luxembourg in terms of the numbers of citizenships granted per head of population.

“Most of these are for non-EU people, Nigeria ranks very highly and is followed by India and the Philippines, but it shows Ireland is much more international than it used to be.”