Calls for referendum

NORTHERN Ireland now has a Catholic plurality for the first time since the UK-run province was carved out as a Protestant fiefdom a century ago, data revealed yesterday.

The figures from the 2021 census added urgency to calls from Sinn Fein and other pro-Irish nationalist parties for a referendum on unification with the Republic of Ireland.

Northern Ireland was created in 1921 with an in-built Protestant majority, after pro-UK unionists had threatened civil war when the rest of Ireland achieved self-rule from Britain.

But since a 1998 peace deal that ended three decades of sectarian violence, demographics have been shifting towards the old Catholic minority.

Sinn Fein, formerly the political wing of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army (IRA), emerged on top in May elections in Northern Ireland, and has also dominated recent opinion polls south of the border.