All-Ireland ‘census’ highlights differences and similarities…(N. Ireland ‘more atheistic’)

Belfast Telegraph ^ | 13 June 2014 | Fionnan Sheehan

[Olog-hai]

People in Northern Ireland are older and more likely to be atheist and divorced than their neighbors in the Republic. A new census report systematically compares life in the two jurisdictions for the first time, highlighting key differences and similarities in religion, lifestyle and work. […]

Marriage and living together are both slightly more common in the Republic while splitting up and lone parenthood are more common in Northern Ireland. Nearly one in 10 adults in Northern Ireland is divorced or separated—which is nearly twice as many as in the Republic—and 37% of northerners are single compared with 42% of southerners. […]

Around two-thirds of Northern Ireland’s population were Protestant in the first half of the 20^th century, but this has changed hugely since the 1960s as the number of Catholics increased and Protestant numbers fell. …

[Olog-hai]

Full title:

All-Ireland ‘census’ highlights differences and similarities, north and south: We’re bit older and more atheistic

If that is the case, then the North will go to pieces before the Republic.

[Unam Sanctam]

Normally, I would have attributed the greater atheism to the higher Protestant population, but I had always thought that the Protestants in Northern Ireland (C of I and Presbyterians) still were mainly Christian believers, unlike a lot of those in the mainstream Protestant churches here in the US.