Country Report: Non-Discrimination: Ireland 2021

Irish society is quite homogeneous. According to the 2016 census,1 of a population of just under 4.8 million, 78.3 % are Roman Catholic, 9.8 % are non-religious (an increase of 73.6 % from 2011), and the remainder are of various other religions. 82.2 % of the population describe themselves as ‘White Irish’ and 0.7 % as Irish Travellers.2 57 850 people identify as ‘Black African’ or ‘Black Irish’, with 9.5 % belonging to ‘Any other White background’. 643 131 people, approximately 13.5 % of the population, recorded having a disability. A total of 6 034 same-sex couples live in Ireland. Non-Irish nationals number 535 475 (11.6 % of the population), with UK citizens and nationals of other EU countries (Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian and Latvian) comprising the top five nationality groups.