Census 2012

The population has risen 8% to 4,525,281 as of April 2011 - in terms of religion, we're 84% Catholic (3.8m), 124,000 Church of Ireland, 48,000 Muslims, 44,000 Orthodox and 256,000 ticked the "no religion box". Ireland's population is also 94% white, 1.4% Black, 2% Asian, and the rest mixed/unstated. Finally, in terms of nationality breakdown, 17% of the population were foreign nationals, with Poles (122,585) overtaking British (112,295) as our most populous immigrants, along with 65,000 "Africans", 41,000 "Asians", 36,000 Lithuanians, 24,000 Americans, 20,000 Latvians, 17,000 for both Nigerians and Romanians and 16,000 Indians. Edit - the thread title should read "Census 2011".

Civil servants down south take a fair bit of stick but at least they can get this done a nd delivered inside a year. Up north the census was done at the start of 2011 and it won't be out for months yet. When the results are published I can't see it having the same levels of diversity as this has produced. Looks like diversity is here to stay. Seems to be a lot of white africans in Ireland if those figures are right, a bit odd that part.

Must be time for service attendance frequency on the religion question. Many people just tick "Catholic" (for example) when it's obvious 84% don't regularly attend mass.

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Originally Posted by Macy

Must be time for service attendance frequency on the religion question. Many people just tick "Catholic" (for example) when it's obvious 84% don't regularly attend mass.

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So you have to go mass be a catholic ?

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Originally Posted by TheBoss

So you have to go mass be a catholic ?

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I would have thought so anyway, to be a practising catholic anyway.

On another note,

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in terms of religion, we're 84% Catholic (3.8m), 124,000 Church of Ireland, 48,000 Muslims, 44,000 Orthodox and 256,000 ticked the "no religion box".

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Does this mean Presbyterians aren't included or are in the 'no religion' or 'orthodox' area?

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Originally Posted by TheBoss

So you have to go mass be a catholic ?

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No, but I'd put good money down that if you did a survey in the morning, asking a proper cross-section of the country whether or not they believe in God, you wouldn't get an 84% yes. There are a lot of people around who are "Catholic" in the sense that they'll have a funeral in a Catholic church, and in that their kids will be baptised so the local school can't legally discriminate against them, and sweet feic-all else.

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Originally Posted by TheBoss

So you have to go mass be a catholic ?

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I didn't say that . However, the census is used to inform decisions on educational patronage for example. establishing whether people who say they are a certain religion actually practice is actually fairly important imo. for alot of people ticking catholic is the default when they don't practice, don't follow the teachings (eg sex before marriage / contraception etc). For the figures to mean anything it should be more than tick the appropriate box on the form.

Didn't get to read any analysis of Cenus figures but suppose at first glance its a surprise that population has increased. A lot of rural towns have that slight 1980s desolate feel due to the decimation of the 20-30yr demographic. Has baby boom added figures that emigration took away?

Emigration only kicked off in earnest after about mid to late 2009, I suppose there was some growth while things were still going well between 2006 and then.

To be honest, I'm surprised that Catholicism hasn't dropped off more, it could just be the crowd I hang around with, but nobody goes to mass, and most are actively hostile towards religion.

I think that people are actively hostile towards Catholicism but do still hold on to some aspects of faith. I think now more than ever the church (RC, CoI, Muslim...) should be there to help people through dark times but the carryings-on of the Catholic Church in Ireland mean that a vast number of our population don't feel they have somewhere to turn and are at a loss.

I say come over to the dark side to the "other" Catholic Church. The Cof I welcomes you. :)

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Originally Posted by nigel-harps1954

Does this mean Presbyterians aren't included or are in the 'no religion' or 'orthodox' area?

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There are plenty of other groups in the census not in culloty's list.
http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Stat...35&PLanguage=0
1,284 Mormons surprised me!

I'm curious about the 14,118 people with "other" religions. How many satanists, Greek god believers, scientologists or whatever else are there?

I'm curious about the 14,118 people with "other" religions. How many satanists, Greek god believers, scientologists, league pyramid fundamentalists or whatever else are there?[/QUOTE]

Fixed that for you, Schumi.

While we're wondering about how many of the RCs are practising or à la carte, the same point - I suspect - could be made of the other religions listed.

Even more than the RC stat, the Irish-language stats continue to baffle - 1.7 million (41%) of us claim to be able to speak Irish, yet only 1% of that use it on a daily basis. The first stat seems fairly exaggerated, as that total would be twice the figure for Welsh, which generally is in a far healthier state, but determining what frequency of speaking should make you a regular speaker seems trickier. As for the argument that TG4 is a waste of money, there's probably a greater argument for keeping the station and scrapping RTÉ based on quality of programming. Intriguingly, 514,000 spoke a primary language other than English in the home, which suggests that a national radio station that broadcast in Polish, French, Lithuanian, etc, like similar stations that operate in the UK, could be viable.

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Originally Posted by Eminence Grise

I'm curious about the 14,118 people with "other" religions. How many satanists, Greek god believers, scientologists, league pyramid fundamentalists or whatever else are there?

Fixed that for you, Schumi.

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:) Now where's that thanks button gone?!

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While we're wondering about how many of the RCs are practising or à la carte, the same point - I suspect - could be made of the other religions listed.

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Indeed. The no religion group may get a pass on that one though.

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Originally Posted by peadar1987

To be honest, I'm surprised that Catholicism hasn't dropped off more, it could just be the crowd I hang around with, but nobody goes to mass, and most are actively hostile towards religion.

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That's my point - people still tick catholic, but the reality is that for many they simply don't practice. The census should be capturing that (for all religions) for the figures to be meaningful. I know people who ticked "catholic" and they haven't been to church outside of christmas/ weddings/ funerals for 7 or 8 years (and 7 or 8 years ago it was because they had to be seen to attend to have the church wedding!).

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Originally Posted by culloty82

Even more than the RC stat, the Irish-language stats continue to baffle - 1.7 million (41%) of us claim to be able to speak Irish, yet only 1% of that use it on a daily basis.

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Imo, that's a fairly damning indictment of how Irish is taught in schools. You have 14 years of classes in it from a young age (known to be the best time to start learning any language) and you have to pass it in the Leaving to pass the whole thing. In theory, all the people of this country should be able to speak the language yet the figures say otherwise. This could be used as ammo for those who think we should scrap compulsory Irish, clearly, the current system isn't working.

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Originally Posted by culloty82

41,000 "Asians".

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:D

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Must. Try. Harder. Census People.