Changing Religious Affiliations: A census perspective -

Changing Religious Affiliations: A census perspective -

Desmond A Gilmor

Between the 1911 census and the 1991 census, there was a decline in the proportion of the population belonging to religions other than Roman Catholic - from 10.4% to 4.2%.

The 1961 census-result was the first to reveal the number of people returned as having no religion or as having left the religion question unanswered. We find that by 1991 their combined number had increased from 6,732 (in 1961) to 149,645 - the latter figure surpassing the total for the combined minority religions. By the time of the 2002 census, we find : 38,264 declarations of no religion; 79,094 census respondents not answering the religion question; and 2,118 respondents falling into categories such as "agnostic", "lapsed Roman Catholic". In other words, this grand total of 219, 476 respondents had formally declined to give themselves a religious affiliation - amounting to 5.6% of the country's population.

In the 2002 census, more respondents answered "no religion" than in 1991 - and fewer left the question unanswered. Also in 2002, the number ticking "Lapsed Roman Catholic" declined by 84.3% (in an era of increasing numbers missing from pews !). All this indicates a more upfront attitude towards secularism - an attitude more pronounced among the upcoming generation : the specification of having no religion peaked for people in their 20s, and was registered by 5.9% of them (the comparable figure for those aged 60-and-over being 1.2%).

The following percentage increases were recorded between the census of 1991 and that of 2002 : minority religions - 60.6%; "no religion" (or no answer) - 45.2%; Roman Catholic - 7.3%. As a proportion of the total population, however, Catholicism in this period decreased from 91.6% to 88.4% (The Republic's population had risen by 11.1%). Christian denominations other than Roman Catholic increased their number of adherents by 48.3% (to 196,675 persons or 5% of our total population), and non-Christian religions increased by 285% (to 31,034 persons).

As regards immigrants: of the 1991-to-2002 total, 71.2% were Catholics (while in 1991, 91.6% of the Republic's total population had been Catholic). A picture of considerable diversification emerges, when one examines - within the 2002 "non-Catholic" categories - the proportion accounted for by the immigrant component : of those affiliated to "other Christian religions", 24.3% were immigrants; of "other [non-Christian] stated religions", 32.1% were immigrants; and of the "no religion" category, 29.0% were immigrants.

One more attrition factor operative on the Catholic population is the 20th century's less stringent church regime governing the obligation of the Catholic partner to have the children of a marriage brought up as Catholics where the other partner is not Catholic. And in partnerships less formal than church marriages, some parents may sit lightly to the religious upbringing of children.

In the context of total households, in 2002 the number of children recorded as of "no religion" or of "religion not stated" had increased by 86.4%. Even in households where both parents were returned as Catholics, the number of such children had risen sevenfold.

Des Gillmor is Emeritus Fellow and Associate Professor of Geography,
Trinity College Dublin

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