CSO publishes figures on Mayo Travellers, ethnicity and religion

THE Central Statistics Office (CSO) today published Census 2016 Profile 8 Irish Travellers, Ethnicity and Religion.

The report shows that the number of Irish Travellers stood at 30,987, representing 0.7% of the general population in April 2016.

In Mayo, there were 1,303 Irish Travellers enumerated in the county in April 2016. This was a fall of 101 (-7.2%) on the number in 2011 (1,404). They made up 1 in 100 (1%) of the county’s population, compared to 0.7% at national level.

There were more male (661) than female (642) Travellers. Over half (53.3%) of all Travellers in the county were aged under 20, compared to fewer than 3 in 10 (27.1%) of the county’s overall population.

In April 2016, those who indicated a “White Irish” ethnic or cultural background amounted to 110,637 people (86.3% of the county’s population), a decline of 1,649 on 2011.

The next largest grouping – “Any Other White background” accounted for 11,162 persons (8.7%), a decline of 32.

Those with “Black or Black Irish (African/any other Black background)” comprised 593 persons (0.5%) while 1,423 persons (1.1%) indicated an “Asian or Asian Irish (Chinese/any other Asian background)”. A further 1,253 (1%) stated they were of “Other, including mixed background” while 1,874 (1.5%) did not state their ethnic/cultural background.

Catholicism remains the predominant religion, accounting for 87% (113,481) of Mayo’s population in April 2016. However, this was down from 117,721 persons five years previously. The average age of Catholics in the county was 40.6 years, slightly above the county’s overall average age of 40.2 years.

As with the State overall, the next largest group was those with no religion. In 2011, the 4,994 people with no religion comprised 3.8% of the county’s population. By 2016, this had increased to 7,604 people comprising 5.8% of the county’s population. Their average age was 37 years, making them 3.2 years younger on average than the county’s population overall.

The 2,631 Church of Ireland members in the county made up 2% of its total population. On average, Church of Ireland members in Mayo were 4.5 years older (44.7 years) than the overall population in the county.

Deirdre Cullen, senior statistician, commented: “This report, the eighth of eleven thematic reports of Census 2016 results, provides further insight into the demographic structure of our population, this time looking at religion, ethnicity and Irish Travellers.

“These themes are examined by age, social class, and household composition. As always, all of this information is available on www.cso.ie, where users can also access detailed data for their own area.”