The Protestant majority in Northern Ireland has shrunk to its lowest level since the province was created, though the Catholic minority is growing more slowly than many had expected, according to a census published Thursday.
The results suggested that although the numerical gap between the two communities is narrower than ever, a majority in Northern Ireland would likely vote for the province to remain a part of the United Kingdom rather than join the Republic of Ireland, if a ballot was held.
Some Catholic politicians have claimed that political unification of Ireland is inevitable, based on the steady increase in Catholic numbers in the north over recent decades. Protestant lawmakers have called for a vote on the issue.
The 2001 census for Northern Ireland showed those claiming to be Protestants formed some 45 percent of the province's population and stated Catholics 40 percent.
Based on questions concerning the religion people were brought up in, the census put the total Protestant community at 53 percent of the 1.68 million population and the Catholic community at 44 percent. When Northern Ireland was created in 1921, Protestants accounted for some two-thirds of the population.
The 2001 census saw the lowest ever number of people in Northern Ireland — 45.6 percent — claim to be Protestants, census officer Robert Beatty told The Associated Press in a phone interview.
In the last census, held in 1991, some 50 percent of people said they were Protestants. The same year, 38 percent of people said they were Catholics. That figure rose to 40.3 percent in 2001.
Some 14 percent of people in the 2001 census said they had no religion or didn't say what their religion was. They were asked what religion they were brought up in.
Based on their answers, census officers determined that 53 percent of people in Northern Ireland belonged to the Protestant community, 44 percent to the Catholic community and 3 percent to another religious community or none.
There was no official estimate of the size of the Catholic and Protestant communities in the 1991 census. But the most widely accepted academic estimates put the ratio at 58 percent Protestant, 42 percent Catholic.
Beatty, the census officer, said there were no comparative figures for the growth rate of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, largely because many people had refused to state their religion in past surveys.
Beatty said it was difficult to predict the growth of the two communities because of the high level of people moving in and out of Northern Ireland.
Both Catholic and Protestant politicians had expected a stronger rise in the number of Catholics than the 2001 census showed.
Hardline British Protestant lawmaker Jeffrey Donaldson said that republicans, who favor unification with the south, should now accept that "a united Ireland is not even a remote possibility."