Carried out in 2021 and published on Thursday September 22 by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra), the decennial census of the population of Northern Ireland marks a historic turning point. For the first time in the history of this nation of the United Kingdom, still traumatized by an interreligious conflict (the “Troubles”), which pitted a Catholic minority against a Protestant majority until the end of the 1990s, Catholics outnumbered the Protestants.
In 2021, out of a total population of 1.9 million, 45.7% of Northern Irish people declared themselves to be Catholic, while 43.5% said they were Protestant and 9.3% had no religion. In 2011, during the previous census, 45.1% of the population said they were Catholic but still 48.4% declared themselves Protestant. When the State of Northern Ireland was created in 1921, leading to the partition of the island of Ireland, approximately two thirds of Northern Irish were of Protestant faith (Anglicans, Presbyterians, etc.).
“These data are extremely significant. At partition, Northern Ireland was formed from six predominantly Protestant Irish counties. It was designed as a Protestant state for a Protestant people., recalls Clare Rice, specialist in Northern Irish issues at the University of Liverpool. At the time, the Protestants of the island were worried about the republican movements, essentially Catholics, refusing the British colonization of Ireland. By helping to create a Northern Irish state, they wanted to preserve themselves from what they pejoratively called “the law of Rome” (the hold of the Catholic religion).
Accelerated secularization
“No one imagined at the time that the majority could switch to the Catholic side. The latter have long constituted a discriminated minority [pour l’accès au logement ou aux emplois publics] », adds Clare Rice. In the 1960s and 1970s, Catholics tolerated discrimination less and less and, in a context of rising movements for civil rights and self-determination, the “Troubles” began. They will last thirty years. The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 put an end to it, but peace remains fragile, Brexit having revived identity tensions between Catholics – rather in favor of a reunification of the island – and Protestants, generally “unionists”, supporters of remaining in the UK.
Census data on identity issues is also cause for concern for Unionists: only 31.86% of Northern Irish people consider themselves British first
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