Ireland is in a bit of a change according to the Census. The huge data that the OSC released shows an aging and diverse population in Ireland. The most surprising thing is the sharp fall in the numbers professing to be Catholic fell from 79% in 2016 to 69% in 2022. Also for the first time in 171 years Ireland’s population exceeded five million people at 5,149,139 people in April 2022 which was a 8% increase since April 2016.
During that time the average age of the population increased from 37.4 in 2016 to 38.8 in 2022. That compares with 36.1 in 2011. The number of people with dual citizenship was 170,597, which represents a 63% increase from 2016. Approximately a third of the workers (747,961) worked from home a part of their work week. More people (700,000) do voluntary work, of which almost 300,000 volunteered in a sporting organization. Almost 80% of households had a broadband internet connection, which is up from 71% in 2016.
The number of non-Irish citizens residing in Ireland has increased in 2022 and now account for 12% of the population. The largest groups were still Polish and UK citizens followed by Indian, Romanian and Lithuanian. The number of Polish is fewer than 100,000 declining by 24% in just six years. The UK and Lithianian numbers also decreased in contrast the Indian, Romania and Brazil numbers increased the most since 2016. There were over 18,500 people on Census night who indicated that their country of citizenship was Ukraine. While there were many more from Ukraine in Ireland that high number indicated Ireland was not their usual residence and so they were not included in these figures.
The number of people who usually lived in Ireland but were born elsewhere was at 20% of the population, representing 1,017,437 people and an increase of 207,031 from 2016.
The numbers of usually resident Irish Travelers increased by 6% to 32,949.
The Irish Gazette’s editorial staff will continue to digest and analyze huge data that was released by the Central Statistic Office and report in the next issue of THE IRISH GAZETTE.
