Those for and against the North's union with Britain can find statistics in the census that support their aspirations. Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor, analyses the census figures
The Northern Ireland census returns knocked a dent in Sinn Féin's argument that a united Ireland is achievable by 2016, the centenary of the Easter Rising. The census also challenges unionists to shed their politically debilitating siege mentality and to adapt to a growing nationalist population.
That is based on the crude business of counting the "Taigs and Prods". A primitive form of work indeed; but in terms of trying to throw some shape on the political and constitutional future, it is a legitimate and necessary exercise. Someone has to do it.
While both unionists and nationalists can find support in the figures, the census provides more immediate reassurance for unionists. There were predictions in recent weeks that the Catholic population would be as high as 46 per cent and the Protestant figure under 50 per cent, making Protestants for the first time a minority in terms of the overall population.
That didn't happen. As reported here yesterday, the headline figure is 53 per cent Protestant and 44 per cent Catholic, with the remaining 3 per cent non-Christian or of no religion. In terms of those practising a Christian faith, the figure is 40 per cent Catholic and 46 per cent Protestant, with an interestingly high 14 per cent of no religion or refusing to state a religion.
The 53/44 figure arises when the census-takers extracted from that 14 per cent the religious background in which they were raised and added it to the religious faith figure. In round terms, there are 890,000 Protestants and 740,000 Catholics in Northern Ireland, a difference of 150,000.
The census illustrates that the Catholic population grew by 2 per cent in the past 10 years, while the Protestant population declined by 5 per cent. Worryingly for unionists, were that trend to continue to the next census in 2011, the figures would be 48 per cent Protestant and 46 per cent Catholic. Continue that trend to 2016 and there would be a 47 per cent Catholic and 45.5 per cent Protestant population.
Allowing for that trend and for nearly all Catholics to vote for a united Ireland, then Gerry Adams and Mitchel McLaughlin could be just about right in their predictions. But for two reasons this is an unlikely scenario. Firstly, (as long as David Trimble doesn't continue to annoy them too much with gratuitous insults about the Republic) there will always be a small but significant body of Catholics who will opt to maintain the link with Britain, particularly if the North-South element of politics is flourishing.
Secondly, it seems unlikely that the Protestant population would continue to decline at a rate of 5 per cent every 10 years. While the Protestant population is older than the Catholic one, and while there are a greater number of Catholics than Protestants of school-going age, there are indications of a slowing down in the Catholic birth rate. The decline may continue but at a slower rate.
This question will remain an imponderable until we have the school figures in the next round of census figures in March. We should have an idea then whether the Catholic/Protestant birth rate is close to levelling out. "There are signs that the Catholic/Protestant birth rate is flattening out," one demographer told The Irish Times.
The census figures point to a form of re-partitioning of Northern Ireland. Picture an electoral map and there is a predominantly green tinge from a sizeable portion of Derry all the way around to south Down, with the orange glow to the east, and Belfast shared between Catholics and Protestants.
As regards elections, such is the breakdown in Protestant/Catholic numbers in the 18 Westminster and Assembly constituencies that unionists should, for the next couple of elections at least, control 11 of them and nationalists 7, as is the case at present. Again that should provide encouragement for unionists.
The last great imponderable is migration, and this could be crucial to whether a united Ireland is attainable in the medium term. Over the past 10 years, 200,000 people settled in Northern Ireland and 200,000 left.
We don't have a breakdown of whether most of those leaving were unionist or nationalist or most coming in nationalist or unionist. But we do know of a trend of young Protestants attending college or working in Britain and staying there, and of Catholics more prepared to stick it out in Northern Ireland.
It relates to how Protestants fled the west bank of Derry and how unionists are moving east or abroad, as if there were some internal computer chip telling them they must shift when Catholics are establishing a firmer base close to them.
Quite why this happens raises more crude questions: does it indicate inherent sectarianism or is it what must naturally result from being imbued with a siege mentality? It certainly denotes, from a unionist perspective, a dangerous form of defeatism which could, more so than the Catholic birth rate, in a generation or two lead to a nationalist majority in Northern Ireland. For unionists, the lessons of the census are that they should learn to live with their neighbours and learn to love the Catholic-Protestant consensus philosophy of the Belfast Agreement.