Strictly just for fun !
UPDATE: I have prepared detailed spreadsheets for when the census results are released based upon Local Government Wards. I have no doubt the headline figures will be released extremely fast so I will be concentrating on detailed figures as quickly as possible. My first post will be a Council by Council breakdown followed by individual wards. I will be producing direct comparisons with the previous census so that trends and demographic changes can be quickly identified. I welcome any suggestions as to a different approach but this is my plan.
An interesting pic for those of you who may be seduced by Unionist outreach and the peaceful intentions of the “Fleg” protesters here. Complete with Gentleman Jim QC. Ahem ( Credit to Chris Donnelly)
UPDATE: 48% was the result. Well done to those who got it right. I was surprised to be honest. Any of the winners in Bangor I will buy a pint for ! e-mail me
"We in coming days may be" 
Good Plan.
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Maybe Im just being over optimistic but I ve already stated that the Catholic community background at a mininmum will be 46% but I suspect it will be higher because of immigration but I also expect a big increase in the ”other” category as a result I would therefore be very suprised if Protestant community background is over 50%.
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boondock, I agree, but, and it is a reasonably sized but I think the check on Nat jubilation will be the % describing themsleves as Irish – if this is low forties or below then that suggests that a UI is a long way off – irrespective of the Catholic backround-Nat %.
BD, spiffing widget.
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Thanks Sammy, You know me, the optics are important 😉
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Over on the ‘Open Unionism’ blog a discussion as gone up on the strong hostility many Scottish nationalists are now openly directing to the British Identity. Now I’m far from an expert on Scotland, but I’d guess that the nationalist revival is at its most potent among the younger generations – in particular the educated, imbued with youthful hope. My supposition is of course anecdotal; on a night out in OZ I was witness to a trenchant debate between an Aberdeen lad and a rangers supporter from Paisely, who was being lectured that Scotland had no business interfering in Ireland and “we definetely” – the Aberdeen dude speaking for Scotland – have nothing to feel pride about what our ancestors who migrated to Ireland have become. Furthermore, a Dundee mate with a mathematics PHD one day spoke that alot of his generation of Scots envied the independent nature of the Irish .Now given the closeness in history and culture between the Irish and Scots, and with particular emphasis on the large numbers of young supposedly of unionist inclination crossing the channel for uni, well am I being too rash but to believe that, at the very least a re-evaluation must be happening within the Protestant community of Northern Ireland about their identity and what sort of future they want. Maybe Bangordub, you living on the North Down Coast have a better inkling, as to if there is the seedlings of change coming, because me as a hardline Wolfe Tone-esque republican don’t want for this to continue to be a religious headcount with the very real scenario that Dublin/London in another decade could countenance the dreaded re-partition. This is why I’m hoping that Martin McGuiness wasn’t misquoted a few days back when he seem to be suggesting that SF is prepared to subordinate its role to an umbrella grouping to Unite the people of Our Island and Nation – and I believe that we already have the template from the founding fathers of the USA and Wolfe Tone and his colleagues to create an attractive proposal for a new start on the island of Ireland.
This I hope doesn’t make me a hypocrite talking about increases in catholics in Garvagh and Killyleagh. Celebrating, if its so, nationalist increases in those wards was me hoping that it would increase the impetus for ‘The re-evaluation’ I predict is going to happen within Unionism after this census, 810,000 ‘taigs’. Unfortunately as already said, that is going to mean, increased mutterings about repartition, some ‘Bloodsuckers’ of the banking variety are probably already foreseeing Bangor becoming a TaxHaven and it is why Crumlin/Glenavy are now so important, because along with Belfast the wanna-be Brits of Antrim and North Down will have a major headache even for their own warped delusions in thwarting the inevitable.
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I don’t think the ward info is released tomorrow though I could be wrong.
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Oaklesf, quote from original website:
Summary: This release comprises Key Statistics for a range of different geographical breakdowns of Northern Ireland including Northern Ireland, Local Government Districts (LGDs), Health and Social Care Trusts (HSCTs), Education and Library Boards (ELBs) and NUTS Level III areas (European Union Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics).
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Good post mekonged: I feel that it will take the calling of a reunification poll for any such re-evaluation to begin in earnest. Up until that point comes, SF/SDLP cannot do it on their own.
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Jack,
Agreed, an excellent post from Mekong
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Glenavy One ouput area, going by NISRA, is among the best educated and comfortable districts in the wee north. The vast majority of young people will attend university and unemployment is negligible. Its the nationalist equivalent of Saintfield. I’d say its a ‘black ops’ by SB ruc offspring. Plenty of them living nearby and black to their inner core. Brush’s home in Ballygawley. Just too coincidental. No Tyrone folk I know have a problem with him. In neighbouring Altmore ward, perhaps the most ‘republican’ place in Ireland the 20% protestant community can’t in all honesty complain of any intimidation, and for a place full of stereotypical ‘republican swarm’ if you are of a Paisleyite disposition it is the second safest ward in all the wee north. No assaults, GBH, DRUGS, BREAKINS, WIFE-BATTERING, and most importantly no Sectarianism.
Also Ballygawley and Glenavy both host orange parades and the easy going locals let them dwell in the anachronism that is Sectarian triumphalism.
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http://audioboo.fm/boos/1105253-census-northern-ireland-s-religious-breakdown
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My only worry is that these results could drive loyalist paranoia even worse especially when its confirmed that Belfast is majority Catholic.
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Agree with you but it is not a nationalist fault that these people were unprepared for this
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They couldn’t accept it in 1918 and they can’t accept it now. What happens if an innocent catholic gets murdered over this? Things could get out of hand.
Worring times ahead. The fault lies at the DUP/UUP feet.
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Oakleaf,
This has to change. The default Unionist position has always been to play the Orange Card. Threaten violence in other words. The Loyalist response is to fulfill that threat.
It needs to be faced down full stop because it is the stance of a bully and it no longer works. I’m not intimidated by the idiots waving their Flegs, are you?
They haven’t got this message yet. They will
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No but how hard is it for the peelers to arrest people blocking a road?
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Operationally easy, politically tricky
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As mentioned over on FJHs site the remarks by Billy Hutch. about the DUP and UUP putting Alliance addresses on their leaflets illustrates their responsibility for both whipping up tensions and channelling those tensions against Alliance.
The decision to allows music to be played passing St Pats(presuambly on the advice of the PSNI) during the Covenant parade was a strong indicator that dangerously (and understandably) illustrated that Law and Order may take precedence over principle and was a signal that won’t have been lost on those organising the flag protests.
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Sammy, an excellent point and one which is not lost on me.
Remember I’m just a wee poor Dub. A blow in, who is naive and clueless as to the nuances of the intracacies of the Northern proletariat
Hmmmm.
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I hope you had a goodnights rest and are ready for a long day of number crunching
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So headline figure is 45% to 48%. To sum up Catholic community background 1 or 2 % lower than expected but Protestant community background is also 1 or 2% lower than expected. Its all very tight hence Peter Robinsons catholic outreach crusade
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Sorry boondock for giving you a thumbsdown my finger slipped on the touchscreen.
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No worries
Forgot to include the link
http://www.ninis2.nisra.gov.uk/public/pivotgrid.aspx?dataSetVars=ds-2303-lh-37-yn-2011-sk-136-sn-Census+2011-yearfilter–
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Sammy wont be happy with the identity figures as only 25% Irish, 20% N.Irish and 40% British which becomes 28%, 29 and 48 when duplicate answers included. To be honest I wouldnt read too much into it as I have stated before plenty of nationalists are comfortable using the Northern irish term (unlike Peter Robinson who seems to think it is only reserved for moderate protestants and catholic unionists). Just out of interest less than a 1/3 of people in England and Wales class themselves as British!
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boondock,
these are very bad figures. Robbo will be returning to his theme of Nts in crisis I’m sure. Luckily I’m up to my neck in work….
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I know you lads are more interested in the religious side of things but I think you really need to be concentrating on those national identity figures. First of all I am included (and I guess others) in that 28% Irish figure (ie we have mixed British-irish identity). To bring about a 32 county republic you really need to be working more on a secular case and pulling up that mixed irish figure. It’s not to say that only the “irish” would vote for a “United” Ireland but I think you should at least accept that if anyone, regardless of religion, plumps for a British or N.Irish only that you can not accept their vote as automatic even if they are catholics.
Interesting also that that the identity figures tie in, more or less, with what the NILT survey has been telling us all those years.
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Personally, after a quick look i find these figures staggering
2001 – 895,000 protestants = 53.1% of the pop
2011 – 875,000 protestants = 48.34% of the pop
Thats a drop of 4.84% and more importantly 20k people in a decade
The Cain site says that over 65s has grown 18% in the last decade, 2/3 of whom are protestants, it makes you wonder what the drop would have been if the mortality rate had stayed the same.
I,m no demographer but that says to me, a community in crisis.
Meanwhile the Catholic pop has grown by 79,000 and now dominate the child bearing cohort in the north.
Nature is going to take its course at both ends of the scale and it looks to me like big changes are ahead for the north
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What has happened here is that a lot of the same people allocated as protestant last time have not been allocated to protestant this time. There is a massive secularisation process going on with British people both sides of the Irish sea.
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That is part of the reason but a bigger reason is that 2/3rds of the elderly dying are protestant. Secondly the big jump in secularism is in the young age groups who I guess are the children of mixed marriages, hence no religion
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re
2001 = 895
2011 = 875
Can you show the figures for 1991 and 1981 – can only see longer term trend for RC figures on CAIN
81=605,639
91=678,462
01=738,033
11=817385
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Seems like an absolute catastrophe for any hopes of a united Ireland to me, no matter what way you spin it. And, as sammy predicted, there is a lot of straw-clutching going on.
Ignoring the sectarian numbers initially, we have 48 British, 28 Irish, 29 Northern Irish. The first straw-clutchers grasp that ‘well, maybe Northern Irish is an identity within Irish’, well if we look at the classification 2 question 39% are British only ,25 Irish only ,20 NI only, only 1% give ‘NI and Irish only’ with 6% saying ‘NI and British only.
So, nearly 50% British, that roughly corresponds to the 48% Protestant number, but it doesn’t seem likely that there’s a 1:1 correspondance (Is this broken down anywhere?). Even if there is, that would put Catholics split between Irish and Northern Irish, they’re not all awaiting the day when they can usurp the unionist oppresor and reunite with their countrymen in freedom, a huge amount of them are clearly happy being part of this statelet artificially created to keep an oppressive elite in power.
Remember, this wasn’t a border poll question, the practicalities of a UI, fears of a loyalist backlash, etc, don’t come into it, this is just ethnicity. If near 50% are British we can safely say they’d vote to mainitain the union. The only possibly straw which seems anyway realistic to clutch at is that a lot of Irish nationalists boycotted the census, but it would still hardly push the numbers above 40.
Another straw-grasper is that ‘nationalist parties take nearly 50% of the vote’. Well, leaving aside their stagnating figures and lower levels of catholic participation, we can see that only about 50% of people generally vote in Stormont elections. If the nationalist/unionist breakdown of votes is roughly 50/50, that leaves about 50% of self-defined British people unrepresented politically and an unknown amount of Irish and Northern Irish people similarly so. Those British would vote to maintain the union. I.e. even if we disregard how the N Irish and Irish would vote, there’s a good 50% of these British people who don’t regularly vote, they would swing any border poll to a safe pro-union result.
Those insisting on willfully treading muck on Wolfe Tone’s legacy and continuing to see this in sectarian terms might find some solace in today’s census, real Irish nationalists and real republicans will not. I think we should call it quits now, instead of aiming for a UI, aim for an inclusive Northern Ireland which does not favour one tradition over the other and maybe even draws closer to the southern state in intergovernment ties, etc. Then perhaps, with more favourable conditions in 50 or 60 years, see how we are. I can’t help but see us part of a United States of Europe before we could realistically see a united Ireland.
Perhaps a break up of the UK would give us a spurt? Personally I don’t see that happening either.
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weidm7,
Harsh but fair.
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Personally I like to look at the positives. Under 50% describe themselves British which will no doubt fall as the years pass. Its up to Irish nationalists and republicans to convince people of the benefits of a united Ireland.
In the mean time a vastly different 6 counties is shaping up. Took a quick look through the stats and noticed that the biggest increase in the catholic population are in greater Belfast apart from Dungannon and Limavady.
On a curious note Strabane is the only area with a small protestant increase.
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On my way home here on the bus but i took another look and the catholic population has increased by 24% in N’Abbey since 2001 thats some jump. Anybody knows N’Abbey will know that whole population will be concentrated in the Glengormley/Mallusk area because if your a taig there ain’t much choice to live anywhere else in this council.
Will get the rest of the maths done later and post them up.
Some big changes in the wards when released.
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In order for us to safeguard any hope of a UI and bring up the numbers of ‘Irish only’, a few things are necessary:
RTE, TV3 and any other southern TV and radio channel, but especially RTE should treat NI as an integral part of its audience, northern presenters, northern-themed shows, ‘national’ shows should include northern personalities. Tax incentives could be given by the southern government to induce northern media channels to treat the south similarly. Set up all-Ireland cultural bodies who give grants on both sides of the border, a la Foras na Gaeilge.
Southern political parties should run up north. Whether through merging with a local party or setting up anew, they should all be run on an all-island basis.
An all-Ireland economy, to unify as much as possible taxes, charges and incentives between the two regions and even give incentives to encourage all-Ireland companies. Headquarter southern companies in Belfast.
Encourage the Orange Order, Irish cricket, Irish rugby and any other all-Ireland bodies with historically protestant links, to grow and gain support in the south. Mention and congratulate northerners playing for team Britain on southern sports shows.
The way things are now, the two groups are in practice living in two different countries. Answering ‘are you Irish’ with ‘No, I’m northern Irish’ makes perfect sense. Only when we get to a point where it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to anyone but the most ardent entrenched loyalist, then we’ll be within sight of a UI. More importantly, the people don’t care and neither do the politicians, especially the commonwealth party in power down south right now. We need lobby groups, political will, mass support. I think the support is there, judging by that MRBI poll recently, but I can’t see it happening unless some group takes it on.
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Weidm7
I agree with every point you make.
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My own quick calculations.
National Identity:
39.89% = British only
25.26% = Irish only
20.94% = Northern Irish only
00.66% = British and Irish only
06.17% = British and Northern Irish only
01.06% = Irish and Northern Irish only
01.02% = British, Irish and Northern Irish only
05.00% = Other
A Suggested Aggregate National Identity:
47.26% = Irish
46.72% = British
01.02% = British/Irish/N. Irish
05.00% = Other
Religion:
48.36% = Protestant / Other Christian
45.14% = Roman Catholic
00.92% = Other Religion
05.59% = No Religion
The aggregate percentages for “Irish” and “British” are of course a conflation of the census results for:
25.26% (Irish only) + 20.94% (Northern Irish only) + 01.06% (Irish and Northern Irish only) = 47.26%
39.89% (British only) + 00.66% (British and Irish only) + 06.17% (British and Northern Irish only) = 46.72%
I’m not stating that all of that 20.94% “Northern Irish only” in the 2011 census self-identify as Irish in the sense of being citizens of the nation-state of Ireland but rather they self-identify as Irish in the sense of being inhabitants of the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland. Which is still, most definitely, not British. And very likely for a significant number of that percentage is closer to Irish in the conventional accepted sense of the word than not.
That 47.26% is unsurprisingly close to the combined vote for the Nationalist parties in the North. As it is half the population of the north-east of the country reject the label of British.
A case of more hard work ahead.
Beidh ár lá linn! 🙂
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I think your figures and analysis Sionnach should be the benchmark from which to appraise this ‘letsgetongerist’ mash of identities.. britsishness is now a minority. I’m holding back from any defined reading of this census because the Wards ain’t out yet but it seems to me that in N’Mourne 3000 catholics have opted to describe themselves as British, but following Weids stratagem towards the goal of Uniting our island, its seems to me that many Protesant/ no religion in Ards and North Down dont want to be associated with Britishness, Organeism and the Empire fetish. Also Oak its pretty clear on these figures that the 3 western counties of the ‘wee country’ have been hit hard by out migration for employment opportunities. Is that to Greater Belfast, or further afield we dont know. But overall the Glass is half full. The West is won, Belfast is almost Irish and North Down can be won!
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