Ireland - Population Summary

How many children of your age are there.
Other Pages | Geography Index
County names in English and Irish and their meanings
Counties by Density of population | Number of People | Size | Highest Points

Province Area in KMs2 Number of
People 		Number of People
for each
square KM
Connacht 17,704 464,050 26
Leinster 19,757 2,105,449 107
Munster 24,175 1,101,206 46
Ulster 21,532 1,788,071 83


  Area in KMs2 Number of
People 		Number of People
for each
square KM
Northern Ireland 13,466 1,541,500 114
Republic of Ireland 69,702 3,917,336 56
Overall Total 83,168 5,458,836 66

Population figures 1841 to 1991


Sources: Republic of Ireland - 2002 Census results
Northern Ireland - Population estimates 1992 per Microsoft Encarta 1996

Population of Ireland 1841 to 1991

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Year Total
1841 8,175,124
1851 6,552,385
1861 5,798,967
1871 5,412,377
1881 5,174,836
1891 4,704,750
1901 4,458,775
1911 4,390,219
1926 4,228,553
1936 4,248,165
1951 4,331,514
1961 4,243,383
1971 4,514,313
1981 4,975,601
1991 5,103,555

Each little person stands for 100,000 people.
Each row of ten stands for 1 million people.


Density of people by county 1841, 1901, 2002

Notes: The figure for 1936 is the sum of Republic of Ireland 1936 and Northern Ireland 1937.

Sources: Three sources were pieced together:-
LM Cullen - Economic History of Ireland
CSO - Republic of Ireland 1901 - 1991
Cain web service
Per the sources used there was no census in Northern Ireland between 1937 and 1951.

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Number of Children by Age

Republic of Ireland


How many children were there of your age. For example if you are twelve, there were 60,993 children aged 12 in 1998 and 70,982 children aged 12 in 1991. The number of children has dropped by about 10,000. This is because families have a smaller number of children than they used to have.

How many children are there of your age now. Can you work out a rough answer? For example is you are aged twelve in the year 2000, you were aged 10 in 1998 so the number of children aged ten in 1998 will be about the same as the number of children aged 12 now. So the answer is, about 56,000.

Age 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991
1 52,805 50,341 49,032 47,869 49,242 51,301 52,512 53,521
2 51,086 49,741 48,514 49,808 51,541 53,639 53,845 52,775
3 50,430 49,187 50,283 51,818 53,598 55,242 52,845 54,858
4 49,779 50,877 52,306 53,639 54,794 53,981 54,810 57,834
5 51,379 52,823 54,044 54,813 53,764 55,676 57,686 60,352
6 53,288 54,456 55,160 53,431 55,613 58,620 60,048 60,652
7 54,800 55,567 53,737 55,743 58,442 61,260 60,323 62,120
8 55,940 54,098 56,048 58,327 60,905 61,257 61,744 64,895
9 54.357 56,405 58,628 60,453 61,107 63,104 64,442 68,212
10 56,645 58,896 60,628 61,012 62,569 65,242 67,692 69,788
11 59,085 60,861 61,219 62,495 65,233 68,940 69,313 72,079
12 60,993 61,389 62,506 65,473 68,357 70,298 71,586 70,982
13 61,457 62,702 65,571 68,185 70,026 72,762 70,509 69,043
14 62,741 65,698 68,301 69,903 72,263 71,967 68,605 68,046
15 64,637 66,839 68,302 70,445 71,054 69,776 67,572 67,297

Figures are for Republic of Ireland
Source: Department of Social and Family Affairs Report 1998
Figures are the number of those for whom Child Benefit was being paid. This approximates very closely to the number of children.
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