Demography and Ethnic Background
According to the 2011 Irish census, there are 49,200 Muslims living in the Republic of Ireland, representing a 51% increase over the figures for the 2006 census. According to the 2006 Irish census, there are 32,539 Muslims living in the Republic of Ireland, representing a 69% increase over the figures for the 2002 census (19,147). In 1991, the number of Muslims was below 4,000 (3,873). Islam is a minority religion in Ireland, behind Roman Catholicism and members of the Church of Ireland (incl. Protestants. The 2006 census recorded the number of Roman Catholics at 3,644,965, with 118,948 Protestants. In terms of numbers, Islam in Ireland is relatively insignificant, and although Muslims can claim to be the third largest faith group in Ireland they also lagged significantly behind those with no religion, at 175,252, and those who did not state a religion, at 66,750.
According to the 2001 census, there are 1,943 Muslims (1,164 males 779 females) in Northern Ireland.
The Muslim community in Ireland is not just small but diverse and its numbers are not determined by the country's history to the same extent as the UK and France, where the majority of Muslims are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from former colonies, or Germany and Austria, where the majority of Muslims are Turkish migrant workers and their descendants. Just over 55 per cent of Muslims were either Asian or African nationals with 30.7 per cent having Irish nationality. The census also revealed that of the 31,779 Muslims resident in Ireland at the time of the census, 9,761 were Irish nationals, less than the number of Asians (10,649) although more than the 6,909 African nationals.
The Muslim immigration in the end of the 90s was caused by the Irish economic boom and asylum seekers from diverse Muslim countries, but because of the economic situation in Ireland many Muslims are returning to Muslim countries and the Islamic population is decreasing rapidly with many mosques closing.
Read more about this topic: Islam In Ireland
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