Proportion of Catholics in Ireland at all-time low

The proportion of the Irish population who describe themselves as Catholic has reached an all-time low of 84.2%, according to official figures released today.

However last year's census figures, released today, show the number of people in who profess to be Catholic hit a record high, at 3.86 million.

They also show a four-fold increase in the number of people describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or as having no religion between the years 1991 and 2011.

This 277,237-strong group included 14,769 primary school aged children and 14,478 of secondary school age. There were 4,690 children aged under one year who were recorded as having no religion.

There were 129,039 members of the Church of Ireland in April 2011, an increase of 6.4% on 2006.

The CSO says that 20-year period also saw Ireland's Muslim community grow from just 0.1% of the overall population to 1.1%.

"This report again underlines the fact that Ireland has an increasingly diverse population where changing cultures and religious beliefs play an important part," said Deirdre Cullen, senior statistician at the CSO.

Of the 3.8 million Catholics in Ireland in 2011, 92% were Irish while the remaining 8% belonged to a range of nationalities.

Among the non-Irish, Poles were the biggest group with 110,410 persons, followed by the UK with 49,761 and between them they accounted for over half of all non-Irish Catholics.

There were 64,798 divorced Catholics in Ireland in April 2011 of which 27,468 were males and 37,330 were females.