By Dara Bradley

Galway City has the highest proportion of people who say they have no religion compared with the rest of the country, according to the Central Statistics Office.

An in-depth analysis of the 2011 Census figures show that 10.5% of people living in Galway City are categorised as having no religion. Galway City had the highest percentage of people with no religion in any city or county across the country, and has almost twice the numbers of cities, Limerick and Waterford.

The data found that people with no religion, including Atheists and Agnostics, have higher levels of education than the general population – they were more than twice as likely to have a postgraduate degree and more than half had a third level qualification compared with 35.5% of the general population, the analysis found.

The survey, using analysis from the Census, found that 3.5% of the Muslim population living in Ireland, which is about 1,500, are living in Galway City. Over half of Ireland’s 49,204 Muslims live in Dublin.

The data also showed that the number of Roman Catholics in the Tuam and Galway and Kilmacduagh dioceses as a percentage of Irish nationals is over 90%. However, the proportion of Irish nationals who are of Roman Catholic faith in the Galway and Kilmacduagh diocese decreased by 4.1%, compared with the last Census five years’ previous, and is the highest fall of any diocese in the country.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel