Many non-practicing Catholics in the North continue to identify themselves by their religion because of its “political significance”, MPs at Westminster have heard.
Giving his assessment of the 2021 census results – which found Catholics outnumbered Protestants for the first time in Northern Ireland’s history – Dr Kevin McNicholl said that, for him, there was an “important takeaway” that “hadn’t been commented on as much”.
“Part of the reason why someone would call themselves Protestant to indicate they’re Protestant is not the same reason someone would indicate that they’re Catholic,” the Open Learning tutor at Queen’s University Belfast told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.
“It seems when Catholics stop their religious observance they would still call themselves ‘Catholic’; it’s more of a cultural thing with political significance.
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“For Protestants, that’s not necessarily the case to the same extent. So that’s when you find for [those identifying as] ‘British alone’ [in the census], the number is more than those identifying as Irish, for example.”
Dr McNicholl pointed to the symbolic significance of the census results – and the “obvious” policy outcome in relation to “increased calls for a Border poll”.
But he also noted the rise in the number of “others” – that group of people identifying as having no religion – which would “swing such a Border poll”.
That group, he said, were “very diverse”.
“Even considering them as a ‘third minority’, it overeggs the idea this is a homogenous group in the same way as Irish or British.”
Published in September, the latest census results showed those identifying as Protestant dipped from approximately 48 per cent in 2011 to 44 per cent last year. Catholics increased from 45 per cent to 46 per cent.
Statisticians found a marked increase in those who said they had no faith, at 17.4 per cent compared to 10.1 per cent a decade ago.
Committee chair Simon Hoare told the Westminster hearing that he was familiar with the phrase “lapsed Catholic’ but had “very rarely heard of a lapsed Protestant”.
Describing himself as a “Roman Catholic but also supporter of the unity of the UK”, Mr Hoare asked Dr McNicholl if there was “a danger of presuming that all those who identify as Catholic are in favour” of not only a Border poll but of Irish reunification.
Dr McNicholl replied: “Certainly not. I certainly wouldn’t want to give the idea there’s any sort of uniformity.
“I think it’s somewhere around 70 per cent of Catholics who consider themselves nationalist. Of the people who call themselves nationalist, a lot of them don’t even want a united Ireland in the short term or long term.”
Experts also gave evidence on the “fairly phenomenal increase” in the North’s ageing population, a development that will have “huge implications for public policy”, according to Dr David Marshall, director of the census at the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA).
The population now stands at 1.9 million (a 5 per cent increase from 2011).
However, the number of people aged 65 and over has increased by 25 per cent over the past 10 years.
“We’ve more centurions than we’ve ever had in the past and that will continue,” added Dr Marshall.
“The expectation, if the population projections at the moment come to pass, is around one child in every five or one child in every six will live to the age of 100.”
North Antrim MP Ian Paisley expressed concern at government having enough money to care for an ageing population and asked Dr Ian Shuttleworth, a population geographer at Queen’s, if the census results were factored into his research.
Dr Shuttleworth told him that while he is continuing to analyse the data, decisions on policy and census questions are a “political matter”.
He added: “But what I can say about understanding the trends in populations in Northern Ireland, the same as in most parts of Europe, is that there will be implications for the number of school places that are needed.
“There will be implications about the size of the labour force and tax raised to support welfare as well.”
He also said that that the increasing secularisation of Northern Ireland society was important.
“Northern Ireland is still more religious than other parts of the UK but it is actively getting more like other parts now, and somewhat more like the Republic of Ireland, in going down this route towards the path of secularisation.”
With a significant rise in the number of people from ethnic minority groups now living in the North – the highest it has ever been, with one in 15 people born outside the UK or Ireland residing in Northern Ireland – Dr Shuttleworth said that continuing migration will “help maintain” population levels after a projected peak around 2040/2050.
Geraldine McGahey, the chief commissioner of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, agreed that migration will help “sustain the economy”, but said the most “pressing” issue was the 25 per cent rise in over-65s, a development impacting right across the “public policy spectrum”.
