The island of Ireland is split into 32 different counties, and from 1800 until 1921 the whole island was a part of the United Kingdome of Great Britain and Ireland (although Britain had been a controlling presence on the island for considerably longer than this). In 1921 the island was split into two separate states, where the six counties with the highest population of Protestants formed part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the other 26 counties became the Independent Republic of Ireland. From 1821 until 1841, the population of these 26 counties was growing steadily, until the Great Famine from 1845 to 1849 swept across the island, particularly devastating the west and south.

The famine was caused by a Europe-wide potato blight that contributed to mass starvation and death throughout the continent, although it's impact on Ireland was much harsher than anywhere else. The potato blight affected Ireland so severely as the majority of potatoes in Ireland were of a single variety which allowed the disease to spread much faster than in other countries. People in the west and south of Ireland were particularly dependent on potatoes, and these areas were affected more heavily than the north and west, where flax and cereals were the staple. As the potato blight spread, the population became increasingly reliant on dairy and grain products, however a lot of these resources were relocated by the British military to combat food shortages in Britain. Due to disproportional dependency on potatoes, and mismanagement by the British government, over one million people died and a further one million emigrated. The Great Famine lasted from just 1845 to 1849, but it's legacy caused almost a century of population decline, and to this day, the population of Ireland has never exceeded it's pre-famine levels.

The population decline continued well into the twentieth century, during which time the Republic of Ireland achieved independence from the British Empire. After centuries of fighting and rebellion against British rule, Irish nationalists finally gained some independence from Britain in 1921, establishing an Irish Republic in the 26 counties. There was a lot of conflict in Ireland in the early 1900s, through the War of Independence and Irish Civil War, however the population of the Republic began growing again from the 1960s onwards as the quality of life improved and the emigration rate declined. The population was at it's lowest from 1926 to 1971, where it remained at just under three million, but in the following fifty years the population has grown by over two million people.

In 2024, there were 435,000 people aged between 40 and 44 in the Republic of Ireland, the most common age group among those provided in this year.

Population by religion by Local Authorities. (Census 2022 Theme 2 Table 4 )Census 2022 table 2.4 is the total population by religion. Details include population by religion. Census 2022 theme 2 is Migration, Ethnicity, Religion and Foreign Languages. The country is divided into 31 administrative counties/cities. Outside Dublin, there are 23 administrative counties and four cities: Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. There are four local authority areas in Dublin: Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 Section 9 provided for the amalgamation of the city and county councils in Limerick, Waterford, and North Tipperary and South Tipperary County Councils.Coordinate reference system: Irish Transverse Mercator (EPSG 2157). These boundaries are based on 20m generalised boundaries sourced from Tailte Éireann Open Data Portal. This dataset is provided by Tailte Éireann, Administrative Counties 2019

In 2024, the population of the Republic of Ireland was approximately 5.38 million, with approximately 1.5 million people living in County Dublin, the region with the highest population.

National and subnational mid-year population estimates for the UK and its constituent countries by administrative area, age and sex (including components of population change, median age and population density).

The 4 scenarios are: Baseline/Business as usual – based on medium term projections for the economy with an underlying assumption that net inwards migration would converge to 15,000 p.a. by 2024 and remain at that level throughout the projection horizon. 50:50 City – based on a similar outlook in terms of net inwards migration but whereby population growth is distributed in line with the objectives of the National Planning Framework (See National Policy Objectives 1a and 2a of https://npf.ie/wp-content/uploads/Project-Ireland-2040-NPF.pdf) High Migration – assumes that net inwards migration stays at an elevated level throughout the projection horizon (net inwards migration of 30,000 p.a) Low Migration - assumes that net inwards migration falls to net inwards migration of 5,000 by 2022 before converging back to the business as usual levels (i.e. net inwards migration of 15,000 p.a.) by 2027 and remaining at that level thereafter.

Abstract

IPUMS-International is an effort to inventory, preserve, harmonize, and disseminate census microdata from around the world. The project has collected the world's largest archive of publicly available census samples. The data are coded and documented consistently across countries and over time to facillitate comparative research. IPUMS-International makes these data available to qualified researchers free of charge through a web dissemination system.

The IPUMS project is a collaboration of the Minnesota Population Center, National Statistical Offices, and international data archives. Major funding is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Additional support is provided by the University of Minnesota Office of the Vice President for Research, the Minnesota Population Center, and Sun Microsystems.

Geographic coverage

National coverage

Analysis unit

Household

UNITS IDENTIFIED: - Dwellings: No - Vacant units: No - Households: Yes - Individuals: Yes - Group quarters: Yes

UNIT DESCRIPTIONS: - Dwellings: A dwelling unit is living accommodation which is occupied or, if vacant, is intended for occupation, by one or more households. - Group quarters: Communal Establishments (CEs) or non-private households, including, hotel, boarding house, guest house, bed and breakfast, hostel, educational establishment, religious community, children's home, nursing home, hospital/nurses' home, prison, defence establishment (including ships), civilian ships, boats and barges, garda station, and holiday campsite

Universe

All persons present in Ireland on the census night, including visitors and those in residence. Usual residents who were temporarily absent were included but asked a subset of questions.

Kind of data

Census/enumeration data [cen]

Sampling procedure

MICRODATA SOURCE: Central Statistics Office

SAMPLE DESIGN: A 10% random sample of the recoded household records from each county was selected. The records within each county were sorted randomly before output to the sample file.

SAMPLE UNIT: Household

SAMPLE FRACTION: 10%

SAMPLE SIZE (person records): 440,314

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

There are 4 forms completed by the public: a. Household Form (main census form); b. Listing Form ; c. Individual Form ; and d. Large Print Form. The information from the Household Form is used here.

This feature layer was created using Census 2016 data produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and Local Electoral Area boundary data (generalised to 20m) produced by Tailte Éireann. The layer represents Census 2016 theme 3.1, population aged 3+ by ability to speak Irish. Attributes include population breakdown by ability to speak Irish (e.g. yes, no, not stated). Census 2016 theme 3 represents Irish Language. The Census is carried out every five years by the CSO to determine an account of every person in Ireland. The results provide information on a range of themes, such as, population, housing and education. The data were sourced from the CSO.For the purposes of County Council and Corporation elections each county and city is divided into Local Electoral Areas (LEAs) which are constituted on the basis of Orders made under the Local Government Act, 1941. In general, LEAs are formed by aggregating Electoral Divisions. However, in a number of cases Electoral Divisions are divided between LEAs to facilitate electors. The current composition of the LEAs have been established by Statutory Instruments No’s 427-452/2008, 503-509/2008 and 311/1998.

This feature layer was created using Census 2016 data produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and Local Electoral Area boundary data (generalised to 20m) produced by Tailte Éireann. The layer represents Census 2016 theme 2.2, the population usually resident in Ireland by ethnic or cultural background. Attributes include population breakdown by ethnicity or cultural background (e.g. Asian or Asian Irish, White Irish). Census 2016 theme 2 represents Migration, Ethnicity and Religion. The Census is carried out every five years by the CSO to determine an account of every person in Ireland. The results provide information on a range of themes, such as, population, housing and education. The data were sourced from the CSO.For the purposes of County Council and Corporation elections each county and city is divided into Local Electoral Areas (LEAs) which are constituted on the basis of Orders made under the Local Government Act, 1941. In general, LEAs are formed by aggregating Electoral Divisions. However, in a number of cases Electoral Divisions are divided between LEAs to facilitate electors. The current composition of the LEAs have been established by Statutory Instruments No’s 427-452/2008, 503-509/2008 and 311/1998.

In 1821, Ireland's population was just over 6.8 million people. During this time, the entire island was a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, after both islands were united by the Acts of Union in 1800. From the graph we can see that the population enjoyed steady growth between 1821 and 1841, and it rose by almost 1.4 million people in this time. However the Great Famine, which lasted from 1845 to 1849, had a devastating impact on the population, causing it to drop from 8.18 million in 1841 to 6.55 million in 1851. The Great Hunger The famine was caused by a Europe-wide potato blight that contributed to mass starvation and death throughout the continent, although it's impact on Ireland was much harsher than anywhere else. The potato blight affected Ireland so severely as the majority of potatoes in Ireland were of a single variety which allowed the disease to spread much faster than in other countries. As the potato blight spread, the population became increasingly dependent on dairy and grain products, however a lot of these resources were relocated by the British military to combat food shortages in Britain. Due to disproportional dependency on potatoes, and mismanagement by the British government, over one million people died and a further one million emigrated. The Great Famine lasted from just 1845 to 1849, but it's legacy caused almost a century of population decline, and to this day, the population of Ireland has never exceeded it's pre-famine levels. Road to recovery The population decline continued well into the twentieth century, during which time the Republic of Ireland achieved independence from the British Empire. After centuries of fighting and rebellion against British rule, Irish nationalists finally gained independence from Britain in 1921, although the six counties with the largest Protestant populations formed Northern Ireland, which is still a part of the United Kingdom today. In spite of the conflict that overshadowed Ireland for much of the twentieth century, which claimed the lives of thousands of people (particularly during the Northern Irish Troubles), and despite Ireland's high emigration rate, the population began growing again in the second half of the 1900s. The population was at it's lowest from 1926 to 1961, where it remained around 4.3 million, but in the following half-century the population grew by over two million people, reaching 6.4 million in 2011, although this number is still lower than in 1821. Gender stats The difference between the male and female populations throughout Ireland's recent history has also remained relatively low. The largest difference occurred in 1831, where there are 170,000 more women than men, although these figures do not include military personnel which would reduce the difference significantly. The gap then remains under 60,000 throughout the twentieth century.

Population aged 3 years and over by ability to speak Irish by Local Authorities. (Census 2022 Theme 3 Table 1 )Census 2022 table 3.1 is population aged 3+ by ability to speak Irish. Details include population counts by ability to speak Irish. Census 2022 theme 3 is Irish Language. The country is divided into 31 administrative counties/cities. Outside Dublin, there are 23 administrative counties and four cities: Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. There are four local authority areas in Dublin: Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 Section 9 provided for the amalgamation of the city and county councils in Limerick, Waterford, and North Tipperary and South Tipperary County Councils.Coordinate reference system: Irish Transverse Mercator (EPSG 2157). These boundaries are based on 20m generalised boundaries sourced from Tailte Éireann Open Data Portal. This dataset is provided by Tailte Éireann, Administrative Counties 2019

Irish Travellers as a Proportion of the Total Population by Statistic, Province County or City, CensusYear and Sex

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SUPERSEDED - The dataset was originally published with a doi in October 2020 but has been superseded by an updated version. This DOI has been superseded in June 2021 by https://doi.org/10/ghkx due to corrections applied to the dataset. In the analysis of these data, annual adults-per-adult productivity for Atlantic salmon in the study catchment were estimated. Each year, salmon return after one winter at sea (known as 'grilse') or they return after multiple winters at sea (known as 'MSW' fish). In the original dataset, the MSW fish were double-counted. For example. if in 2020, 500 grilse and 20 MSW salmon returned to spawn, the original data set would have recorded this as 520 grilse and 20 MSW. This error impacted upon our population-level analysis of the Main Text and our complimentary ova-per-ovum analysis in the Supplementary Material of O’Sullivan et al 2020 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2020.1671. The data was re-analysed following the update, and neither the results nor inferences changed qualitatively and we are happy that the published study is a robust, defensible contribution to the wider literature. # The Marine Institute (formerly the Salmon Research Agency of Ireland and the Salmon Research Trust) operate permanent complete fish traps in the Burrishoole catchment, Co. Mayo, Ireland, as part of a program of long term ecological research (LTER). Data has been collected since 1970. All migrating diadromous fish are enumerated between their marine and freshwater habitats. The data contains census data, fecundity data, and data on the proportion of potential wild and captive-bred (ranched) Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) sampled in the Burrishoole fish traps. The text file contains R code used in the analyses of relative reproductive success between captive and wild-bred Atlantic salmon and can be used to repeat such analyses. The associated text file also contains code relevant to calculating population productivity and the unbiased estimators of relative reproductive success. The Burrishoole fish traps have the following locations: Salmon leap: 53.920323, -9.584348 and Mill Race: 53.924081, -9.571727. As records do not specify which trap the specimens were sampled in, a midpoint of 53.922202 -9.578038 has been applied as the location data in the data distribution. None

Suggested Citation: O'Sullivan, Ronan James; Aykanat, Tutku; Johnston, Susan E.; Rogan, Ger; Poole, Russell; Prodöhl, Paulo A.; de Eyto, Elvira; Primmer, Craig R.; McGinnity, Philip; Reed, Thomas E.; Murphy, Michael; Nixon, Pat; Cooney, Joseph; Sweeney, David; Dillane, Mary; Drumm, Alan; Cotter, Deirdre. (2020) VERSION SUPERSEDED - Census and fecundity data from the captive and wild-bred Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) populations of the Burrishoole catchment, Co. Mayo Ireland 1970 - 2018. Marine Institute, Ireland. doi:10/fck7.

Between 1821 and 1921, the entire island of Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, after both islands were united by the Act of Union in 1800. This graph shows only the population of the six counties of Ireland that would go on to become Northern Ireland. The population was just under 1.4 million in 1821 and grew to 1.7 million in the next twenty years.

Between 1845 and 1849 the Great Famine devastated the overall population of Ireland, causing the deaths of approximately one million people, and causing a further million to emigrate. Although the famine affected the population of the west and south of Ireland much more severely than the north, the population of the six counties still fell by over 200,000 people between 1841 and 1851. The population then continued to fall, reaching it's lowest point in the 1890s where it was 1.2 million. The Northern Irish population then grows slowly until the mid to late 1900s, during which time the state of Northern Ireland was founded in 1921. The population the reaches over 1.54 million in the 1960s, before it falls again in the 1970s. This drop in population coincides with the outbreak and the most violent decade of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which was a conflict that dominated Northern Irish daily life for decades. However, from 1981 onwards the population grows by 70,000 to 12,000 every ten years, surpassing it's pre-famine level in the 1990s.

Small Area Population Statistics (SAPS) are Census statistics produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) for a range of geographical levels including 31 Administrative Counties, 95 Municipal districts, 3,409 Electoral Divisions and 18,641 Small Areas. Although the statistics are collected by the CSO the statutory boundary data sets are administered by OSi. On this website the statistical and boundary data have been fused together to provide almost 500 layers of geo-statistical information. These layers can be downloaded as Open Data in a variety of formats or alternatively accessed via a set of Open APIs.

Population by sex and marital status by Local Authorities. (Census 2022 Theme 1 Table 2 )Census 2022 table 1.2 is the total population of Ireland by sex and marital status. Details include population by sex and marital status. Census 2022 theme 1 is population by Sex, Age and Marital status. The country is divided into 31 administrative counties/cities. Outside Dublin, there are 23 administrative counties and four cities: Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. There are four local authority areas in Dublin: Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 Section 9 provided for the amalgamation of the city and county councils in Limerick, Waterford, and North Tipperary and South Tipperary County Councils.Coordinate reference system: Irish Transverse Mercator (EPSG 2157). These boundaries are based on 20m generalised boundaries sourced from Tailte Éireann Open Data Portal. This dataset is provided by Tailte Éireann, Administrative Counties 2019

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

To collect social, demographic, electoral and linguistic data for each of 118 British and Irish counties in the period 1851 - 1966, in order to study national development in the UK and Ireland.
Main Topics:

Variables
County. Population: growth, proportion aged 65 and over, sex ratio, density, marriage rate, per capita income, proportion in agriculture/manufacturing/middle class/civil service, proportion who were female domestics. Proportion urban, city size, index of ethnic diversity*, vote residual and income residual. Proportion voting Conservative, Labour, Liberal, Nationalist Party. Proportion Celtic speakers. Religiosity, literacy. Proportion of Church of England, non-conformists, Roman Catholics. Proportion English born, Welsh born, Scottish, Irish and French. Voting turnout, birth rate, infant mortality rate.
*See Hechter (AJS 79 2 Sept 1973).

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Dublin, Ireland metro area from 1950 to 2025.

This feature layer was created using Census 2016 data produced by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and Administrative Counties national boundary data (generalised to 50m) produced by Tailte Éireann. The layer represents Census 2016 theme 2.4, population by religion. Attributes include population breakdown by religion (e.g. catholic, other religion, no religion). Census 2016 theme 2 represents Migration, Ethnicity and Religion. The Census is carried out every five years by the CSO to determine an account of every person in Ireland. The results provide information on a range of themes, such as, population, housing and education. The data were sourced from the CSO. In census reports the country is divided into 29 counties/administrative counties and the five Cities which represent the local authority areas. Outside Dublin there are 26 administrative counties (North Tipperary and South Tipperary each ranks as a separate county for administrative purposes) and four Cities, i.e. Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. In Dublin the four local authority areas are identified separately, i.e. Dublin City and the three administrative counties of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin.

Population Usually Resident and Present in the State, who spoke a language other than Irish or English at home 2011 to 2016 (Number) by CensusYear, Language Spoken, Sex and County of Usual Residence

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