Not representative of the whole of Northern Ireland: Many British flags were displayed on Shankill Road in west Belfast for the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
Photo: dpa picture radio
The shrinking of the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland has been a steady process since the 1970s. Now it’s official: Most Northern Irish people now come from Catholic backgrounds. Those who support the continued existence of the province in the UK are also in the minority, according to the latest census results. Since 2011 at the latest, it has been clear to the experts that the Catholic population will soon be the largest ethnic group. So the data released over the past week comes as no surprise, but fuels the debate over the island’s reunification.
Accordingly, in the current census, 42.3 percent stated that they described themselves as “Catholic”. Only 37.3 percent opted for “Protestant.” At the same time, the groups “other” and “no religion” grew. In addition, it was asked in which environment the respondents grew up. Here, too, “Catholic” (45.7 percent) comes before “Protestant” (43.5 percent). The relative majority of these “Cultural Catholics,” as many researchers call them, is particularly relevant. Because even if they no longer practice their religion, they see themselves as part of the now pro-Irish majority. The proportion of atheists has risen sharply in the past 30 years: from 3.7 percent to 17.4 percent.
While one cannot influence the religious environment in which one grows up, Brexit has increased the trend away from the Kingdom. The number of people holding an Irish passport rose sharply from 375,800 (2011) to 614,300. Only 42.8 percent said their identity was “British”.
In 1921 Prime Minister James Craig is said to have described Northern Ireland as “a Protestant country for a Protestant people”. To secure the Protestant majority in the new state, three more Catholic counties (Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal) were separated from the historic province of Ulster – from which Northern Ireland emerged. In six-county Northern Ireland, more than two-thirds were Protestant. This should ensure their continued existence in the United Kingdom for all eternity. For the majority of Protestants are pro-British Unionists, while the Catholic minority tended towards reunification with the South West Republic.
The data from the new census, the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, are playing into the hands of pro-Irish republicans. In 2016, Northern Ireland, like Scotland, voted against Brexit by majority. According to the survey, 64 percent of those who voted against Brexit were in favor of the province remaining in the United Kingdom. Now only 37 percent of them want it. Republican Sinn Féin (SF) is openly campaigning for Northern Ireland’s return to the EU as part of a united Ireland and received the most votes and seats in the Stormont regional parliament for the first time in the May 2022 election. Its leader, Mary Lou MacDonald, has promised to hold a referendum on reunification “within the next five years.”
In a first reaction, SF was pleased. The results of the census clearly showed that “an historic and irreversible change is underway,” said North Belfast MP John Finucane. “The figures underscore the need to intensify preparations for a future referendum on Irish unification,” he is quoted as saying in the Irish News.
How such a referendum could be held is unclear. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 only says that such a deal must be carried out by the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland “if he thinks that there is a majority who wish to change the current constitutional status of the region”.
On Monday, the UK government’s Northern Irish Office said there was “no clear basis to say that a majority of people in Northern Ireland currently wish to secede from the UK.” But the new data also show there is no longer a majority for Northern Ireland to remain in the UK.
