Data released from last year’s National Census has revealed a large drop in the number of people self-identifying as Catholic.
According to figures released by the CSO 3,515, 861 respondents said they were Catholic compared to 3,831,187 for the overall population recorded in the last census conducted in 2011.
On the face of it this represents a drop of 315,326 over an 11 year period.
The total figure of 3,515, 861 reflects that 69% of the population still identify as Catholic while the number of those who identified as ‘no religion’ was 736,210 or 14%, an increase of 284,269 compared to the 2016 figure.
The number of those identifying as Muslim increased by 19,898 while practitioners of Orthodox Christianity increased by 39,388 since 2016.
The average national age was 38.8 years with an overall population of 5,149,139 representing growth of 8% in which the population exceeded the five million threshold for the first time in 171 years.
The number of those who reported as non Irish citizens was 631,785 or 12% while the number of those who reported having dual citizenship was 150,597 or 3%.