This chapter includes information from a range of census questions relating to the diversity of people in Ireland. In 2022, people were asked to provide details on their country of citizenship, their ethnic group or background, their religion, the languages they speak and whether they were recent migrants. Together, the information from these questions produces detailed insight into the socio-demographic characteristics of the population of Ireland.

Irish and Non-Irish Citizenship

There were 4.3 million people who usually lived in Ireland who indicated that they had either Irish only or dual Irish citizenship. This made up 84% of the population of usual residents. The number of non-Irish citizens increased in 2022, accounting for 12% of the population.

• The biggest non-Irish groups were Polish and UK citizens followed by Indian, Romanian and Lithuanian.

• Brazilian, Italian, Latvian and Spanish citizens were also among the larger non-Irish groups.

 

• Indian, Romanian and Brazilian citizens were the groups which increased by the biggest numbers since 2016.

• In 2022, the number of Polish people declined by 24% compared with the previous census, and the number of people with UK and Lithuanian citizenship also decreased.

• Although up from 63,276 in 2006 to 122,515 in 2016, the number of usual residents from Poland declined by 28,835 in 2022.

• A similar pattern can be seen for usual residents from Lithuania, increasing from 24,628 people in 2006 to 36,552 in 2016 and then declining to 31,177 in 2022.

There were 18,566 people present in the State on Census Night who indicated that their country of citizenship was Ukraine. Many of these people indicated that their country of usual residence was not Ireland, so they are not included in the figures published here on country of citizenship which are based on people who were usually resident in Ireland at the time of the census.

Dual Irish Citizens

People completing the census may have been citizens of more than one country. Everyone who ticked both 'Ireland' and 'Other citizenship' in the country of citizenship question on their census form have been grouped in these results as dual Irish citizens.

• The number of people recording dual Irish citizenship was 170,597, representing a 63% increase from 2016.

• People born in Ireland account for 37% of this group.

• The largest groups of dual Irish citizens were Irish-UK, Irish-American, Irish-Polish and Irish-Australian.

• Among the Irish-UK citizens, 87% were born outside Ireland. This was more balanced for Irish-American (55% born outside Ireland) and Irish-Polish (50%) citizens.

Place of Birth

80% of the usually resident population was born in Ireland. This represents a decrease of 3% since 2016.

• The number of people who usually lived in Ireland but were born elsewhere stood at 20% of the population.

• This represented 1,017,437 people, an increase of 207,031 from six years previously.

• The biggest increases were recorded in the number of people born in India (up 35,673), Brazil (23,760) and Romania (13,758).

Place of Birth - large changes

Periods between censuses can see marked changes in the number of people resident in Ireland born in certain countries.

• The number of people living in Ireland but born in Syria increased more than four times to 3,922 since 2016.

• A large increase was also recorded in the number of people born in Chile which more than tripled, growing to 1,363.

• The number of usual residents born in Poland fell by 9,018 to 106,143 people in the six years since 2016.

Recent Immigration

Information collected on usual residence one year ago provides an indication of inward migration into Ireland in the year leading to April 2022.

• In the year preceding the census, 89,512 people moved to Ireland which represents approximately 2% of the usually resident population.

• Of these, 22,137 were Irish citizens and 66,020 were non-Irish citizens.

• Most Irish citizens came from the UK (38%), Australia (12%) and the US (8%). This pattern is similar to the one seen in the year prior to Census 2016.

• The largest group of non-Irish citizens taking up residence in the State in the year prior to the census came from India, with 9,687 arrivals.

• This was followed by people coming from Brazil, recording 5,175 arrivals.

Previously Lived Abroad

The census question on residing outside the Republic of Ireland provides information on when people came to live in the State.

• Nearly 250,000 people who were usually resident in Ireland in 2022 had settled in the country between 2017 and 2022.

• Slightly more than half (55%) of these arrived in the pre-pandemic years, 2017 to 2019.

• A further 113,096 arrived in Ireland between 2020 and 2022.

• The majority of these people were born outside Ireland; 183,207 compared with 66,222 who were born in the State.

Arrivals in Ireland by Country of Previous Residence

Looking at intercensal periods, between the years 2007 and 2011, the number of people moving to live in Ireland was 106,582. This compares with 164,108 people who moved to live in Ireland between 2001 and 2006.

• Between 2012 and 2022, 401,433 people arrived to live in Ireland; of these 62% arrived between 2017 and 2022.

• Arrivals from the UK increased to 36,899 between 2012 and 2016 and again to 49,422 between 2017 and 2022.

• A similar pattern can be seen in arrivals from other European countries (excluding the UK) with just over 68,500 people moving to Ireland in the years 2017 to 2022 compared with just under 60,000 in the four years up to 2006.

• Australia and the USA each accounted for 6% of the arrivals between 2017 and 2022.

• Arrivals from Australia declined after their peak, which was reached between 2012 and 2016.

Ethnic Group/Background

In Census 2022, a revised question on Ethnic Group/Background was asked, introducing several new ethnic groups such as Roma, Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Arab.

• Of the population usually resident and present in the State in 2022, 77% identified as White Irish.

• Of the new ethnic groups added for Census 2022, 94,434 people identified as Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi.

• A further 20,115 identified as Arab and 16,059 as Roma.

• There were more males than females in each of these three groups.

• The number of usually resident Irish Travellers increased by 6% to 32,949.

• Compared with 2016, people in the Other Asian ethnic group almost halved to 44,944, which may be due to the introduction of the Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi category.

• The number of people identifying as Chinese increased to 26,828.

Ethnic Group/Background by Age

The profile of people usually resident in the State varies by age and sex composition for different ethnic groups/backgrounds.

• The age profile of the people identifying as White Irish reflected that of the general population, while other ethnic backgrounds were quite different.

• Irish Travellers were generally younger than the general population.

• There were proportionately more people aged under 14 years and between 25 and 44 years who identified as Roma than in the general population.

• Over half of the people within the Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi ethnic group/background were aged between 25 and 44 years.

Religion

A question on religion has been a part of the Irish census for many years which creates a long historical time series charting the relative growth and decline in the number of people identifying with various religions and also with no religion. The question on religion used in Census 2022 differed from the Census 2016 version which may impact comparability. See the Background Notes for more details.

• The percentage of the population who identified as Roman Catholic fell from 3,696,644 (79%) in 2016 to 3,515,861 (69%) in 2022.

• The total number of Roman Catholics fell by 180,783.

• The figure for people with no religion increased by 284,269 and stood at 736,210.

• The Church of Ireland category showed little change but remained the second largest religious category with 124,749 people.

• Other categories with large numbers included Orthodox (100,165) and Islam (81,930).

• The number of Hindus more than doubled from 13,729 to 33,043.

Religion by Irish and Non-Irish Citizenship

The proportion of Irish and non-Irish citizens differed across religion categories.

• Irish citizens accounted for almost 94% of Roman Catholics but only for 25% of the people in the Hindu category.

Religion by County

Across counties, there were differences in religion categories relative to the county size. 

• Mayo had the highest proportion of Roman Catholics at 80% of the county’s population, closely followed by Tipperary, Offaly, Roscommon and Galway County, all reporting 79%.

• Dublin City recorded the lowest percentage of Roman Catholics at 53%.

• No religion was recorded for 24% of people living in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, but only for 7% of the people in Monaghan.

Languages Other than English or Irish Spoken at Home

First introduced in the 2011 census, the question relating to foreign languages spoken at home continues to provide important data on the linguistic diversity within Ireland's population.

• In 2022, 751,507 people usually resident in Ireland spoke a language other than English or Irish at home.

• This represents an increase of 23% from 612,018 people who spoke a language other than English or Irish at home in 2016.

• Polish remained the most commonly spoken foreign language with 123,968 people speaking it.

• However, the number of people who spoke Polish declined by 9% since 2016.

• The number of people speaking French and Russian at home also declined, both by 6%.

• The fastest growing language spoken was Ukrainian (up 165%), followed by Hindi (154%) and Croatian (137%).

• Reflecting the growing Brazilian population, the number of people speaking Portuguese at home more than doubled to almost 44,000 people in 2022.

Level of English by Citizenship

Of the 751,507 people who spoke a foreign language at home, 57% indicated that they spoke English very well and a further 26% that they spoke English well. 11% indicated that they did not speak English well and 2% did not speak it at all.

• Over 80% of Polish citizens spoke English either very well or well.

• 91% of Indian citizens reported that they spoke English very well or well.

• Some of the highest percentages of English spoken very well or well were recorded for citizens from Malta (98%), Denmark (97%) and South Africa (96%).

• Lower percentages were recorded for citizens from Ukraine (44%), Moldova (57%), Syria (61%) and China (71%).

Languages Spoken by Irish-born Population

Of the 751,507 people who spoke a language other than English or Irish at home, 212,285 were born in Ireland.

• Among those born in Ireland, the most commonly spoken languages were French (32,244 people) and Polish (32,060 people).

• A further 18,966 Irish-born people spoke Spanish at home.