CENSUS OF CHANGE IN THE NORTH
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IN DEMAND
BY
NORTHERN Ireland has a Catholic majority for the first time in its 101-year history.
Census figures released yesterday showed they made up 45.7% of the population compared to 43.48% who were Protestant.
But the nationwide survey, held on March 21 last year, also showed the 1,903,175-strong population was growing, getting older and more diverse than ever before.
The Census 2021 focused on main language, passports and national identity, which all points to an increasingly diverse population. The previous 2011 census showed 45.1% of the population were Catholic or brought up Catholic while 48.4% were from a Protestant or other Christian background.
When it comes to national identity, 31.9% said they had a Britishonly identity, 29.1% said Irish-only, 19.8% said Northern Irish-only while 8% said British and Northern Irish. In terms of passports, almost 60% of people had a British passport while just over 20% had an Irish one.
The latest census was the first to be held since the UK voted to leave the European Union in 2016, which has prompted a spike in applications for Irish passports.
AGEING
The census data also showed the population continued to age. While the overall number was up by 5%, the number of people aged 65 or more grew by almost 25%.
Census 2021 also shows the population is also becoming more diverse with more people from ethnic minorities and those who were born outside the UK and Ireland.
Dr David Marshall, of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, said the differing age profiles of the Protestant and Catholic communities was key to the numbers.
He added: “The religious demography of Northern Ireland in part is driven by age structures.
“What we found in the 2011 census was that the Catholic population was on average younger, so there was essentially a higher number of births in the Catholic population than deaths. That acted to increase the size of the Catholic population.
“The converse is true for the Protestant population.”
Dr Marshall said research following the 2011 census also found evidence of an increasing number of people who would have previously described themselves as Protestant choosing to identify as having no religion. The main current religions are now Catholic (42.3%); Presbyterian (16.6%); Church of Ireland (11.5%); Methodist (2.3%); other Christian (6.9%) and other (1.3%).
In addition 17.4% had No Religion, a marked increase on 2011 of 10.1% and points to the increased secularisation of our population
The 9.3%, or 177,400, of those people who neither belonged to nor were brought up in any religion has increased in size from 5.6% or 101,200. In the latest Census, 814,600 people (42.8%) living here identified solely or along with other national identities as British, down from 876,600 people (48.4%).
Elsewhere, 634,600 people (33.3%) living here identified solely or along with other national identities as Irish. This is up from 513,400 (28.4%).
In all, 598,800 (31.5%) living here identified solely or along with other national identities as Northern Irish, up from 533,100 (29.4%) in 2011.
Also published were results for the national identity, or personbased, classification, which relates to the specific single identity or specific multiple identities people recorded in Census 2021. These include British Only’, Irish Only, British and Northern Irish. The largest person-specific national identities were:
British Only – 606,300 people or 31.9%, down 116,100
Irish Only – 554,400 people or 29.1%, up 96,900
Northern Irish Only – 376,400 people or 19.8%, down 2,900, and
British & Northern Irish – 151,300 people or 8%, up 39,600.
Proportionately the fastest growing group is people with other national identities - typically those from outside UK and Ireland. This group is up from 61,900 people in 2011 (3.4% of the population) to 113,400 people in 2021 (6% of the population).
In total, 1,484,700 (78%) held a single passport and 116,300 people (6.1%) held more than one passport. In contrast, 15.9% or 302,200 people did not hold a passport.
The number of people holding a UK passport solely or jointly stood at 1million, a decrease from 1.07million a decade earlier.