One in five Irish people either told census they have no religion (14%) or declined to answer (7%)

Five years to the day after the public voted to remove Blasphemy as a crime, from the Constitution in the 2018 referendum, detailed figures have emerged today from the CSO showing Ireland is becoming more and more pluralist with each census.

Top level figures published from the CSO last May 2023, from the 2022 Census, indicated over one million people (1 in 5) in Ireland, when asked “What is your religion, if any?” identified as having no religion (14%) or declined to answer the question (7%).

Further breakdown published today, 26th October now gives further insight into the numbers of non-religious people, by age category.

These are some of the findings from the CSO website:-

There was a drop of 21% in the number of Roman Catholics under the age of 10, despite the population in this cohort only decreasing by 8%.

While the total population increased by 1% among 25 to 44 year olds, the number of Roman Catholics in this age group fell by 17%.

The number of people with no religion increased across all age cohorts. There were over 100,000 more people aged 45 or over with no religion, an 88% increase since 2016.

The number of children aged 0 to 9 years with no religion increased by nearly 60% to over 82,000.

Of great significance to Atheist Ireland, the census found that the 25 to 29 age category were less likely to be Roman Catholic (53%) than other age groups. This is also the age cohort with the highest proportion of people with no religion (26%) and the age group most likely to become parents in the next 5-10 years.

With 89% of primary schools under Catholic patronage, how will our education system deal with the growing numbers of non religious looking for secular education, free from indoctrination and evangelisation.