The UK variant is apparently far, far more infections, and by the same token it's deadlier because it's infecting more people who are vulnerable. In Ireland it's now accounting for three out of every four cases.
And will this mean that "only those who would have died anyway" will die of it? Probably not. One sample figure snapped out of an Irish Times story today: "36 priests died in April last year at the height of the pandemic compared to 12 in 2019, eight in 2018 and 14 in 2017. Between March and August last year 135 priests died compared to 79 priests died in 2019 in the same six-month period." (The story is about the Health Service Executive doing a special drive to vaccinate elderly clerics, who are particularly hard hit.)