Church of Ireland - Growth and demographics 

There were 126,414 members of the Church of Ireland in April 2016, a decrease of 2.0 per cent on 2011.

Figure 6.1 shows the age distribution of Church of Ireland members for censuses from 2006 and 2016. 

The average age of Church of Ireland members in 2016 was 40.3, older than the general population whose average age was 37.4 years, and up 1.1 years since 2011. This increasing age is illustrated by the lower number of those aged 20-39 and increasing numbers in the higher age groups.

Despite this ageing population the number of Church of Ireland primary school-going (5-12 year olds) increased by 2,738 to 14,379 between 2006 and 2016 while secondary school age (13-18 year olds) children rose by 764 to 9,291.   

                                                     

Interactive table: StatBank Link E8066

Nationality

For those with a stated nationality, over three quarters of Church of Ireland members (usual residents) were Irish (78.0%). The next largest nationality came from the United Kingdom (14.8%) while Polish and Lithuanians made up 1.5 and 1.4 per cent respectively.

Major occupational groups of Church of Ireland

The number of people identifying themselves as Church of Ireland whom were also working was 49,822.

At a broad occupational level, 'skilled trade occupations' was the largest category, accounting for 19.0 per cent of workers, over half of whom were in agriculture. 

Indeed farming, which accounted for 4,574 persons was the largest single occupation, accounting for 9.2 per cent of Church of Ireland workers, in sharp contrast to 3.5 per cent for the total population.

The professional occupations were the next highest broad category with 18.7 per cent of workers. 

 

Administrative counties 

There were 11,551 Church of Ireland members in Cork County in 2016, the highest of any county and accounting for 9.1 per cent of all the 126,414 Church of Ireland members. This was followed by Dublin City with 11,149 persons (8.8%). Leitrim had the smallest number of Church of Ireland members with 1,102 persons (0.9%). 

Towns

Among towns with a population of 1,500 persons or more (excluding the cities), the Wicklow towns of Greystones (1,485) and Bray (1,132) had the largest populations of members of the Church of Ireland, followed by - Kilkenny (768), Swords (763) and Dundalk (683).

Interactive table: StatBank Link E8056

Orthodox Christianity in Ireland

Increase in numbers

As illustrated in Chapter 4 Orthodox Christians have been the fastest growing religion in Ireland since 1991. There were 62,187 Orthodox Christians in Ireland in April 2016 - up 37.5 per cent on 2011 (45,223) and over three times the number recorded in 2006 (20,798).

Age and sex

The peak age for this group was 35-39 accounting for 14.4 per cent of the total. There were 7,527 primary school age (5-12 year olds) children among the Orthodox Christian community and 4,245 of secondary school age (13-18 year olds).

Types of Orthodox Christianity

While the majority (99.39%) simply ticked the category “Orthodox” on the census form, a small proportion further defined their religion. Three classifications were returned, namely Greek Orthodox (0.18%), Russian Orthodox (0.39%) and Coptic Orthodox (0.04%).  

Nationality and ethnicity

In Ireland, Romanian nationals represented the largest nationality group among Orthodox Christians, accounting for 33.5 per cent of the total. This was followed very closely by Irish (32.6%).  Latvian nationals accounted for 9.0 per cent (5,438) of all Orthodox Christians while Bulgarians made up 3.1 per cent (1,869 persons).

Residence

Over half of Orthodox Christians (52.1%) were living in Dublin mainly concentrated in the outer suburbs as illustrated in the map 6.1, with a further 12.8 per cent in the neighbouring counties of Kildare, Louth and Meath.

Apart from Cork County (4.0%), Tipperary (2.7%), Galway City (2.5%) and Limerick City and County (2.4%) Orthodox Christians were sparsely distributed across the rest of the country. 

At Electoral Division (ED) level, over 10 per cent of the Orthodox Christian population lived in just five EDs. In fact, four of these EDs were also amongst the most popular for Irish Muslims – Blanchardstown-Blakestown (4.0%), Lucan-Esker (2.9%), Castleknock-Knockmaroon (1.3%) and Balbriggan-Rural (1.2%). 

Economic status

The labour force participation rate in 2016 for Orthodox Christians was 85.9 per cent for males and 73.8 per cent for females, much higher than the corresponding rates for the population as a whole (67.8% and 55.2%, respectively).

However while male unemployment among this group was the same as for males generally (13.7%), among females the unemployment rate stood at 19.5 per cent much higher than that of females among the general population (12.0%).

Interactive table: StatBank Link E8060

Growth since 1991

Between 2011 and 2016 the number of Presbyterians in Ireland fell marginally from 24,600 to 24,211  - but still higher than the 2006 total of 23,546.

Age and sex

The average age for Presbyterian men and women in 2016 was 41.3 and 40.5 respectively, compared with 36.7 and 38.0 for the general population.  

Interactive table: StatBank Link E8078

Nationality

Looking at stated nationality, the majority of Ireland’s Presbyterians in 2016 were of Irish nationality (68.1%) followed by the United Kingdom (13.5%). 

Hungarian (560 persons) and Romanian (263 persons) were other European nationalities with any significant numbers. 

Outside of Europe, Brazilian nationals were the largest with 567 persons, followed by South Africans with 276.

Of the 15,023 Presbyterians with Irish nationality 23.2 per cent were born outside the country.

Residence

Almost a quarter (24.3%) of all Presbyterians were in Donegal, the religion's most popular county, with a further 9.8 per cent in Monaghan.

Leitrim had the lowest proportion of Presbyterians at 0.3 per cent followed by Offaly (0.4%).

The five Electoral Divisions (EDs) with the most Presbyterians were all in Donegal. These were: Convoy (339), Raphoe (273), Letterkenny Rural (268), Kincraigy (248) and Rathmelton (246). More than 5 per cent of all Presbyterians lived in these EDs.

 

Map 6.1 Selected Religions by Electoral Division, 2016

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Social class

Presbyterians as a group were slightly more concentrated in the higher social classes than the general population.  

In all 9.5 per cent of Presbyterian were classified to the professional class while 28.7 per cent lived in households classified to the managerial or technical class. The equivalent proportions for the overall population were 8.1 and 28.1 per cent respectively.

On the other hand the proportion of Presbyterians found in the skilled manual, semi-skilled and unskilled occupations was marginally less than for the general population (26.7% and 28.2% respectively).

Apostolic and Pentecostal

Growth since 1991

The Apostolic and Pentecostal population in Ireland has increased substantially over the past 14 years rising from just 3,152 persons in 2002 to 13,350 by 2016. This represents an annualised growth rate of over 10.9 per cent.

The average age for this group stood at just 25.3 years in 2016, significantly lower than the general population and heavily affected by the large proportion of under 20 year-olds as illustrated in Figure 6.9.

Residence

Almost 60 per cent of Apostolic and Pentecostal members lived in the Greater Dublin Area.  Fingal was home to the majority with 23.4 per cent. Another 11.6 per cent resided in South Dublin, followed by Dublin City (9.3%).

Ethnicity and nationality

 In all 55.3 per cent (or 7,301 persons) of the 13,193 Apostolic and Pentecostal population were of African ethnicity in 2016 while 19.7 per cent (2,605) were of “Any other White background”. Ethnic Irish people practicing the Apostolic and Pentecostal religion made up 10.5 per cent (1,380)

Irish nationality was the highest at 66.4 per cent, followed by Romanian (15.0%) and Nigerian (7.2%). Other nationalities of note were UK (1.0%) and South African (0.9%).

Of the Irish nationals 42.4 per cent were born outside Ireland.  

 

Other Christian religions

Evangelical 

Among other Christian religions the census tells us there were 9,724 Evangelical Christians recorded in 2016, an increase of 5,536 persons on 2011.

The number of Methodists fell slightly from 6,842 in 2011 to 6,471 persons in 2016, a 5.4 per cent decrease.

The next largest groups were Jehovah's Witness (6,417), Lutheran (5,329 persons) and Baptist (3,957).

Other Christian

There were 37,427 who described their religion as Christian on the census form, with no further information, and accordingly this group are categorised simply as Christian.  This group decreased by 9.1 per cent in the 5 year period since 2011.

In addition a further 5,409 persons entered Protestant on the census form, with no further details and so this group are categorised directly as Protestant.

A table detailing the full list of all religions recorded and the number of persons associated with each as per Census 2016 (both Christian and Non-Christian) can be found at the link below.

Interactive table: StatBank Link E8053