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It has taken 100 years, but the percentage of Catholics in Northern Ireland has now overtaken the percentage of Protestants for the first time since partition – though this is not the only striking statistic to emerge from the census results today.

The fact that Catholics would one day outnumber Protestants has long been obvious, given the typically higher birth rates among the former, so the release of data from the 2021 census confirming this will be not a surprise to many people.

But the census also contains a wealth of other data about the complexion of modern-day Northern Ireland – including key stats about whether people feel British, Irish, or Northern Irish, and these should be taken into account alongside the religious ones.

These numbers may somewhat set the minds of unionist politicians at ease, because they show that, whilst there are indeed more Catholics than Protestants, “Britishness” remains the most popular choice of national identity – though “Irishness” is on the rise.

Here the News Letter breaks down some of the key things in the massive haul of data released today.

SIX COUNTIES AND A GROWING POPULATION:

First off, let’s look at the general population.

• In the 1861 census, the earliest one available, there were 1.4 million people in the counties that now make up Northern Ireland.

• In 1926, the first census after partition, the population stood at 1.26 million.

• In the last census, 2011, there were 1.81 million people in Northern Ireland.

• Now the new figures show this has risen to 1.9 million.

WHAT’S CHANGED IN TERMS OF RELIGION?

When it comes to religion, the current census asks people two different questions: firstly, what religion they are, and secondly, what religion they are or were raised as.

This article will focus on the second one (because while it is possible for someone to be a “lapsed” Catholic or Protestant in a Christian sense, that person might retain some cultural aspects of their Catholic or Protestant upbringing).

It is worth noting too that the figure for Protestants here covers not just those with ties to the three main churches (Presbyterian, Anglican, and Methodist) but all non-Catholic Christian denominationsfrom Elim and Brethren to Quakers and Unitarians.

• In 2011, when asked what religion they are or were brought up in, these were the results:

Catholic: 45.1%

Protestant: 48.4%

Other/none: 6.5%

• The newly-released figures for 2021 now show this:

Catholic: 45.7%

Protestant: 43.48%

Other/none: 10.82%

Prior to 2011, the figures were recorded differently, and people were just asked their religion, not their religious upbringing.

Bearing this in mind, way back in 1861, 40.94% said they were Catholic and 57.69% said they belonged to the three main Protestant churches.

And in 1926, some 33.46% of people said they were Catholic while 62.21% said they belonged to the three main Protestant churches.

More from this reporter:

Catholic and Protestant QUB staff on course to be eclipsed by those of neither religion

Whopping 94.2% of students in Holylands are Catholic – with sectarian divide branded ‘depressing’

BRITISHNESS, IRISHNESS... AND NORTHERN IRISHNESS:

Now let’s look at national identity.

• In 2011, the census allowed people to choose whether they would describe themselves as Irish, British, Northern Irish – or some combination of all three:

Irish: 28.35%

British: 48.41%

Northern Irish: 29.44%

• Now these are the results from 2021:

Irish: 33.3%

British: 42.8%

Northern Irish: 31.5%

Whilst unionists may take comfort in the fact “British” remains overwhelmingly the top category when it comes to national identity, the gap between Irish and British has closed significantly.

A TANGIBLE PIECE OF NATIONHOOD:

Another very revealing statistic is that far more people have a British passport than an Irish one:

UK passport only: 46.64%

Irish passport only: 26.51%

Irish and UK: 5.49%

The census figures are also broken down into different districts.

So, for example, when it comes to passports, the top three places for having British only passports were Ards and North Down (67%), Mid and East Antrim (63%) and Lisburn and Castlereagh (60%).

The places with the highest proportion of Irish-only passports were Derry City and Strabane (48%), Newry Mourne and Down (42%) and Fermanagh and Omagh (37%).

And the areas most likely to have mixed Irish/British passports are Ards and North Down (7.8%), Lisburn and Castlereagh (7.7%) and Antrim and Newtownabbey (5.7%).

ETHNIC MINORITIES DOUBLE:

Here are some of the other key results from the 2021 census:

• On census day 2021, 3.4% of the population, or 65,600 people, belonged to ethnic minority groups.

This is around double the 2011 figure (1.8%, or 32,400 people) and four times the 2001 figure (0.8%, or 14,300 people).

• The number of people born outside the UK and Ireland has grown from 81,500 people (4.5%) in 2011 to 124,300 people (6.5%) in 2021.

• 4.6% (85,100 people) of our population aged three-plus had a main language other than English; in 2011, English was not the main language of 3.1% (54,500 people).

• In 2021 the most prevalent foreign languages were Polish (20,100 people), Lithuanian (9,000), Irish (6,000), Romanian (5,600) and Portuguese (5,000).

• Respondents said that 12.4% (228,600 people) of those aged three-plus had some ability in the Irish language, up from 10.7% in 2011.

• Meanwhile 10.4% (190,600 people) aged three plus had some ability in the Ulster-Scots language, up from 8.1% in 2011.

• The share of the Northern Ireland population represented by people aged 65 years and over stood at 17.2% in 2021.

• In line with the ageing population, the average household size across Northern Ireland decreased from 2.54 usual residents per household in 2011 to 2.44 usual residents per household in 2021.

The average household size decreased across all 11 local councils.

• The number of one person households stood at 234,600 (30.5% of all households), up from 27.9% in 2011, largely driven by the aging population.

• Belfast remains the largest council by population with 345,400 people in 2021 and Fermanagh & Omagh remains the smallest council by population with 116,800 people in 2021.

• Ards & North Down Council has the highest percentage of people aged over 65 at 22.1%.

• Mid Ulster Council has the highest percentage of people aged under 15 at 21.7%.

• Population growth was proportionately greatest in the Lisburn & Castlereagh Council with 149,100 people in 2021 (up 10.6% from 2011).

• Whilst 78% of people held a single passport, and 6.1% held more than one, 15.9% did not hold a passport.

Beyond Catholics and Protestants: Here’s what 2021 census says about national identity – Britishness, Irishness... and Northern Irishness