Catholics outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for first time since its creation
The numbers from last year's census show that 45.7% of the population are Catholic, compared with 43.5% who are Protestant.
Thursday 22 September 2022 11:31, UK
For the first time in Northern Ireland鈥檚 history, Catholics outnumber Protestants, according to the latest census figures.
The number of people designating as Catholic has increased 0.6% to 45.1%, while the number designating as Protestant has dropped 4.9% to 43.5%.
Sam McBride, Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph, said: "Northern Ireland is a country whose boundaries were drawn in 1921 to ensure a hefty Protestant majority but both are now minorities.
"This is an historic shift, and one which will have political implications, but it does not mean what it would have meant in 1921 - religion is no longer a simple signifier of constitutional preference."
While not every Catholic votes for Irish unity or every Protestant for Northern Ireland to remain British, this result is significant in the year of a historic Sinn Fein election victory.
In terms of nationality, again, there is no group with a majority - 31.9% identified as British-only, 29.1% as Irish only and 19.8% as Northern Irish-only.
The census, recording the highest ever population of 1,903,175, shows Northern Ireland has become a much more diverse society, with the number born outside the UK and Ireland up to one person in 15.
Drama students at The Shelley Lowry School in County Armagh, who are currently rehearsing a play about the sectarian divisions of the past, told us religion does not matter to them.
"In my friend group in school, two are Protestant, two are Catholic and two have come from elsewhere," one student said.
"At the end of the day, we're all just people," he added.
"Whenever you're meeting someone, you don't think if they're Protestant or Catholic. It's just whether or not they're a nice person," another student said.
Shelley Lowry, who coached Jude Hill, the 11-year-old who played Buddy in Sir Kenneth Brannagh's movie Belfast, wrote the play herself.
She said: "We don't want to romanticise the past, don't want to romanticise the troubles, but we need to be very clear this is where we have come from, it wasn't that long ago and we can never go back.
"It's so important that these young people continue with the development and growth that we have seen over the past 25 years.
"Northern Ireland is so much more than the tribal politics and the once-divided community it once was."