Large families and devout Catholicism are less and less of a feature of Irish life according to the 2002 census results published yesterday.
Ireland is less Catholic, more Muslim and more multicultural since the last census in 1991. The number of Muslims has increased four-fold to 19,000 since the last census, while the number of people declaring themselves Catholic fell from 91.6 percent in 1991 to 88.4 percent (3.46 million) in 2002.
The Irish population hit 3.9 million last year, the highest since 1871. Emigration, long a feature of Irish life, fell sharply during the economic boom of the 1990s, which also attracted substantial immigration for the first time.
The census showed the immigration rate has more than quadrupled since 1986 with the number of non-nationals jumping up to 5.8 percent of the total population.
Ireland has the youngest population in the European Union but it is ageing steadily, with an average age of 35.1.
Irish families are also much smaller than the traditional stereotype. Single parents have increased by a quarter in the last three years and the average number of children per family is 1.2.