Census 2022: How does Kilkenny compare to other counties?

The latest data released by the Central Statistics Office makes for very interesting reading from a Kilkenny perspective.

Perhaps most notably, Kilkenny City’s total population has fallen below nearby Carlow Town.

Newly-released figures have Carlow Town’s population at 27,351 and Kilkenny City’s at 27,184.

This means Kilkenny City is now demoted to being the third most populous urban centre in the South-East region, with Waterford City at #1 (60,079) and Wexford Town at #4 (21,524).

Census 2022 shows that the number of people in the county rose by 4,928 to 104,160 between April 2016 and April 2022.
Over the same period, Ireland’s population grew by 8% from 4,761,865 to 5,149,139.

Despite this positive growth, County Kilkenny was still tied at the bottom in terms of percentage population growth (5%) with Donegal and Tipperary.

The population of County Longford showed the highest growth percentage at 14% and the east of the country showed strong growth in general with Meath at 13%, followed by Fingal at 12% and Kildare at 11%.

Kilkenny City has also been listed amongst the country’s most highly populated ‘older towns’ (an average age of 39 years or over) alongside Bray, Tralee, Wexford, Sligo, Malahide and Clonmel.

Kilkenny was also one of two counties with the lowest annual average net migration, the other being Tipperary, both at 4 people per 1,000.

Gender
Of Kilkenny’s population, 52,277 were female and 51,883 were male, which means there were 99 males for every 100 females.
In Ireland overall there were 2,604,590 females and 2,544,549 males which was 98 males for every 100 females.

Age
The average age of Kilkenny’s population in April 2022 was 39.7 years, compared with 37.9 years in April 2016.
Nationally, the average age of the population was 38.8, up from 37.4 in April 2016.
The number of people aged 65 and over continues to grow. This age group increased by 21% to 17,056 in Kilkenny, and by 22% to 776,315 at a national level since 2016.

Dual-Citizenship
In Kilkenny, the number of dual Irish citizens increased from 1,604 to 2,628 while non-Irish citizens accounted for 8% of the county’s population.
Nationally, dual Irish citizenship increased by 63% from 104,784 to 170,597 people and non-Irish citizens made up 12% of the population.

Marital Status
The proportion of separated and divorced people in Kilkenny remains steady at 6% of the population (aged 15 and over), the same as in 2016.
The national comparison was 6% in both 2022 and 2016.

Religion
Across counties, there were differences in religion categories. Mayo had the highest proportion of Roman Catholics at 80% of the county’s population, while Kilkenny showed 77.1% and 11.1% put ‘no religion’.

Labour Force
Labour force participation among people aged 15 and over at a county level showed a rate of just over 60%. There were 46,196 people (aged 15 and over) at work in Kilkenny, an increase of 4,833 people (+12%) between 2016 and 2022. Nationally, there were 313,656 additional people (+16%) at work.
In Kilkenny, 12,906 people (aged 15 and over) worked from home at least one day a week in 2022. This represented 28% of the workforce. The national figure was 32%.
The unemployment rate in Kilkenny was 8% — slightly lower than most neighbouring counties.

Health
In 2022, 85% of people in Kilkenny stated that their health was good or very good compared with 88% in 2016. This is a similar trend to the national figures, which showed a 4% decrease in the good/very good categories, from 87% to 83%.

Gaeilge
The number of people (aged three and over) who stated that they could speak Irish in Kilkenny was 41,037 compared with 38,722 in 2016.
Within this figure 919 said they spoke Irish daily while 2,314 spoke Irish weekly. Nationally, 1,873,997 people stated they were able to speak Irish, with 71,968 speaking Irish daily and 115,065 speaking it weekly.

Childcare
Childcare was a new question for 2022. There were 21,094 children aged 15 and under in Kilkenny in April 2022. Of these, 7,847 (37%) were in childcare, compared with 33% nationally.

Home Ownership
In 2022, in Kilkenny, 72% of households owned their own home, with a further 23% renting. This compared with 66% of households owning their home nationally and 28% renting.

Time Capsule
In Kilkenny, 20% of households wrote a message in their Time Capsule. Nationally, this figure was 19%.

Population Rankings
Below is the revised CSO 2022 ranking of the Republic of Ireland’s largest urban centres, measured by population:
1 ) Dublin - 1,263,219
2) Cork - 222,526
3) Limerick - 102,287
4) Galway - 85,910
5 ) Waterford - 60,079
6) Drogheda - 44,135
7) (+1) Dundalk - 43,112
8 (-1) Swords - 40,776
9 (+1) Navan - 33,886
10 (-1) Bray - 33,512
11 (+1) Ennis - 27,923
12 (+1) Carlow - 27,351
13 (-2) Kilkenny - 27,184
14 (+4) Naas - 26,180
15 (-1) Tralee - 26,079
16 (+1) Newbridge - 24,366
17) Balbriggan - 24,322
18 (-2) Portlaoise - 23,494
19) Athlone - 22,869
20) Mullingar - 22,667

Further reports will be published by the CSO in the coming months.