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"'More Irish than the Irish themselves'" (Irish: '''Níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil iad féin''', Latin: '''Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis''') was a phrase used in the Middle Ages to describe the phenomenon whereby foreigners who came to Ireland attached to invasion forces tended to be subsumed into Irish social and cultural society, adopted the Irish language, Irish culture, style of dress and a wholesale identification with all things Irish. More Irish Families
These forces were generally associated with Richard "Strongbow" de Clare, Hugh de Lacy, and Gilbert de Angulo. The first family to be thus recognised was the de Angulo, known as Mac Coisdeala (i.e. Gilbert, son of Jocelyn) the name which was given to his descendants in Connacht. It was rendered into English as MacCostello, which in time became Costello.^[1] While this phenomenon was associated with earlier invaders, and particularly with the post-12th century English and Norman settlers who became known as the Old English, it is not as often associated with later arrivals from the seventeenth century onwards.
The phrase is still commonly used however, both colloquially and in the media, in reference to immigration and assimilation in Ireland, and to some degree about some of the Irish diaspora (for example in ''The Irish Times'', More Irish Than the Irish Themselves? Sen. Jim Walsh, Dáil Éireann Dr. Liam Twomey TD, Dáil Éireann or ''Irish Emigrant'' The Pull of the City of the Tribes ) or in conversation discussing the relationship between the cultural heritage of the Irish diaspora and the Irish in Ireland. have you heard of this While still echoing its original meaning, contemporary usage of the phrase usually takes a more open interpretation of assimilation or, in the case of the diaspora, the maintenance of Irish heritage. Debates of the Oireachtas demonstrate the age and range of contemporary applications of the phrase. Either when discussing the diaspora:
Or, more light-heartedly, on assimilation:

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1. Originally Mag Oisdealbhaigh as in classical Irish the initial vowel changed the ''c'' into a ''g'', for example: Mag Aonghusa is now Mac Aonghusa, Mag Uidhir is now Mac Uidhir.