One of the most remarkable aspects of the Catholic story in Ireland is its recent transformation from the country with perhaps the highest rate of Catholic practice to a country where Catholic life is spoken about in the past tense. Many Irish under age 60 identify themselves as “Catholic but not religious.” In very many ways, Ireland looks fairly secular today, but no one disputes the emphasis on sacraments, and devotional qualities of Irish Catholicism endure today. Read more...
National Demographics
Note: The Catholic Church's Ireland data amalgamates statistics for both the Republic of Ireland and the six counties comprising Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.
- 1 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2018). World Urbanization Prospects: The 2018 Revision, Online Edition.
- 2 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Trends in International Migrant Stock: The 2015 revision.
- 3 United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, Homicide Statistics 2015.
- 4 Transparency International, Corruption Perceptions Index 2016.
- 5 World Economic Forum, The Global Gender Gap Report, 2016.
- 6 UNICEF, State of the World's Children, 2016.
Catholic Demographics
These statistics are derived from the Vatican's official publication, Statistical Yearbook of the Church 2020 (Vatican City: Librera Editrice Vaticana, 2022). The numbers may differ from data reported by other sources on this site.