New arrivals aid rise in religious adherence

Immigration is leading to a resurgence in religious adherence, according to the census. All the main churches show increases in membership, although there is also a big jump in the number of people with no religion.

The biggest increases are in previously small faiths that have benefited from significant immigration over the past decade. Thus, the number of Muslims has more than quadrupled, from 3,900 in 1991 to 19,100 last year. Even more spectacularly, the Orthodox community has grown from 400 to 10,400 over the same period.

An additional 234,000 people describe themselves as Catholic, but since this growth is lower than that for the population as a whole, the proportion of Catholics has fallen from 91.6 per cent in 1991 to 88.4 per cent in 2002.

For the Protestant churches, the census marks the end of a long period of decline, with the Church of Ireland adding an additional 26,400 adherents, the Presbyterian church an extra 7,400 and the Methodists 5,000 more.

Acknowledging the end to the fall in the Church of Ireland population, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Rev John Neill, yesterday called on Irish Anglicans to do more to welcome their co-religionists from overseas.

"The figures relating to the Church of Ireland in the Republic do not come as a surprise to me. However, they bring home to me afresh the challenge that faces members of the Church of Ireland, alongside that facing each of the Christian Churches."

The Jewish community also ended a long period of decline, with a small increase from 1,581 to 1,790 people.

The biggest increase in any category was in the number of people professing no religion, which grew by 72 per cent. Almost 140,000 people described themselves in this way, up from 66,000 in the last census.

A further 1,000 people said they were agnostic.

Some 500 described themselves as atheists.

About 80,000 people did not state their religion.