Leitrim had high numbers of younger people in 2026, new census figures show

New data shows that in Leitrim in 1926, there were 25,084 females living in the county with 28,704 males residing there. The data was extracted from a a total of  56,701  inhabitants - most of whom were under the age of 40. 

Inhabitants aged between 0 and 40 made up the bulk of the population while the number of inhabitants aged 70 and upwards was much less. 

The new data also reported that Leitrim was the county that saw the biggest decrease in population, with a -37% change between 1926 and 2022.

Another section saw that the population born in Great Britain was most prevalent in Leitrim (8%), Mayo (9%) and Roscommon (8%).

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It also showed that in 2022, 80.4 of residents were born in Leitrim while back in 1925, the percentage was 97.4.

The percentage of Roman Catholics in Leitrim in 1926 was reported as 93.4% but by 2022, that figure had fallen to 76.5%.

Work figures in Ireland

The censuses of 1926 and 2022 also show how the structure of employment in Ireland moved from a workforce dominated by agriculture and manual labour in 1926 to one centred on non‑manual, managerial and professional roles in 2022.

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In 2022, there were 2,320,297 people were at work, compared with 1,307,662 in 1926, reflecting a much larger and more diversified workforce than existed a century earlier.

The gender profile of the workforce changed substantially between the two census years. In 1926, there were 963,768 men (74%) and 343,894 women (26%) at work, while in 2022 the workforce consisted of 1,241,353 men (53%) and 1,078,944 women (47%).

Agriculture dominated the labour market in 1926, employing 672,129 workers, or 51% of the entire workforce. By 2022, this had fallen to 81,470 workers (almost 4%), including 55,037 farmers and 26,433 agricultural workers, marking the most significant structural shift in employment between the two census years.