News

It's official: The most Catholic county in Ireland has been revealed

IRELAND's most Catholic county has been revealed, according to the Central Statistics Office.

The revelation was made in the latest report on the 2016 census based on religion, ethnicity and the Traveller community.

According to the CSO, the highest percentage of Catholics in Ireland were found in Co Offaly, with 88 per cent.

In Dun Laoghaire - Rathdown in south Dublin however, the lowest amount of people identifying as Catholic were recorded at just 69 per cent.

Almost 200,000 people in Dublin said they had 'no religion', the highest in the country, while Ireland's student population demographic largely identified as having no religious belief.

On the whole however, Catholicism is still the largest religion in Ireland but numbers have fallen, the CSO said, with 132,220 fewer Catholics recorded than in the 2011 census.

In other religions, the Church of Ireland remain the eldest in the community with the average age over 40 years old and mostly based in Cork or Dublin.

The Muslim community is also growing in Ireland, with over 63,000 recorded in Ireland, a quarter of who were aged between five and 18 years old.

Other religions in Ireland included Orthodox Christian, Presbyterian, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish.

Ethnicity

'White Irish' remains by far the largest ethnicity group, accounting for 3.8 million residents, followed by other white background ethnicities, non-Chinese Asian, and 'other, including a mixed background.'

Nearly 95 per cent of White Irish people were born in Ireland, with the remaining five per cent born elsewhere including over 120,000 born in England Wales, and 53,915 born in Northern Ireland.

The Travelling community

In terms of Ireland's Travelling community, over 30,000 Irish Travellers were recorded as usual residents in Ireland, up five per cent over the 2011 census.

Almost 60 per cent of Travellers were aged under 25, and there were just 451 Traveller men aged 65 and over and 481 Traveller females.

The majority of the Travelling community were recorded in Dublin and its suburbs, then Galway and Cork.

Out of Irish towns, Tuam had the highest number of Irish Travellers with 737 people, followed by Longford with 730.

Of the Travelling community recorded in the 2016 census, one third aged 15 to 29, were married compared with just over 1 in 20 of the general population.