Anglican and Presbyterian Numbers Leap in Ireland
Episcopal News Service. July 23, 2003 [2003-161-A]
[ENI] The Anglican and Presbyterian churches in the Republic of Ireland have recorded their first increases in support since at least 1881, according to a government census.
Over the past decade, the (Anglican) Church of Ireland grew by 30 per cent, to 115,611, and Presbyterians jumped by 56 per cent, to 20,582. Both figures, disclosed in the 2002 Irish national census published this year, easily outstripped population growth.
"Some of the growth we believe is from Roman Catholics converting to Anglicanism," Brian Parker, spokesman for the Church of Ireland, told ENI. "Paedophile scandals have had an effect among Catholics, and some, particularly young people, feel a general discontent at the conservative edge of the [Catholic] leadership."
Parker said the Anglican membership figures had benefited from a new census entry, "Church of Ireland/Protestant," which included Protestants without a denominational allegiance.
The Central Statistics Office in Dublin says immigration is an important factor in the growth of the main Protestant faiths. Throughout the 1990s Ireland enjoyed one of the European Union's most buoyant economies and was known as the "Celtic Tiger."
The London-based Church Times newspaper quoted a call by the Anglican Archbishop of Dublin, John Neill, for greater efforts by Irish Anglicans to welcome newcomers.
Stephen Lynas, spokesperson for the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, said the church's growth was mainly due to the arrival of asylum-seekers, particularly from West Africa and Asian countries. "Congregations say they have greatly enriched worship," he told ENI.
Ireland--excluding six counties in the north, which are part of the United Kingdom--remains an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country. But support for Catholicism has slipped from 91.6 per cent of the population in the 1991 census to 88.4 per cent in 2002. Ireland has a population of about 3.6 million.
Both the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian Church in Ireland have most of their support in the six northern counties, which became Northern Ireland in 1922 when the rest of the country achieved independence from Britain. Census returns show that the previous decline of the two main Protestant denominations in the mainly Catholic south had begun decades before independence.