Offaly's population grew to 83,000 in last year's Census

Offaly's population increased to 83,150 last year, according to a county-by-county breakdown of the Census 2022 findings.

The figure, published today (Tuesday) represents an increase of 7%, or 5,189 people, when compared with the previous Census in April 2016.

Offaly's rate of population growth was slightly below the 8% level seen nationally during the six-year period. In Ireland as a whole, the 8% rate of population expansion saw the number of people in the country increase from 4,761,865 to 5,149,139.

This is the first time Ireland's population has exceeded five million since the Famine era.

Offaly's population was split almost 50-50 between the genders, with 41,522 females and 41,628 males in the county.

The average age of Offaly's population in April 2022 stood at 39 years. This was fractionally older than the national average of 38.8 years.

In Offaly, the number of dual Irish citizens increased from 1,130 to 1,972, while non-Irish citizens accounted for 9% of the county’s population. Nationally, dual Irish citizenship went up by 63%, from 104,784 to 170,597 people, and non-Irish citizens comprised 12% of the population.

The proportion of the Irish population which identified Roman Catholic as their religion fell from 79% in 2016 to 69% in 2022. Nearly three-quarters of a million people said they had no religion, which represented around 14% of the population.

The Covid-19 pandemic made working from home much more common, and approximately a third of all workers in the State (747,961 people) stated in the Census that they worked from home for at least some part of their week.

This proportion of people working from home was lower in Offaly, where approximately a quarter of the population (24%) said they worked from home for some part of their week.

Other local findings from the Census included the proportion of separated and divorced people, which remained steady in Offaly at 6%, in line with the national average.

The proportion of people who described their current health as 'good or very good' fell both in Offaly and nationally. In Offaly, 83% of people stated that their health was good or very good in 2022, which was down from 86% in 2016.

This was a similar trend to the national figures, which showed a 4% decrease in the good/very good categories, from 87% to 83%.

The number of people in Offaly (aged three and over) who stated that they could speak Irish increased to 28,231, compared with 27,807 six years earlier. Some 586 people in Offaly said they spoke Irish on a daily basis.

Commenting on participation in the Census last year, Cormac Halpin, Senior Statistician with the Central Statistics Office, said: "The publication of Census 2022 results could not have been achieved without the overwhelmingly positive response from the public and we thank everyone who completed their census form on April 3, 2022."