The Census of Ireland 2011 was held on Sunday, 10 April 2011. It was administered by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland and found the population to be 4,588,252 people. Before the census, the latest population estimate was published in September 2010 and calculated that the Irish population had been 4,470,700 in April 2010. The previous census took place five years earlier, on Sunday, 23 April 2006.
Preparation for the census
The Central Statistics Office carried out a census pilot survey on 19 April 2009 to test new questions and methods for the 2011 census. The Irish government met on 11 December 2009 and scheduled the census to take place on 10 April 2011. The meeting also defined the questions that would be asked in the questionnaire.
There were also campaigns by the Atheist Ireland group, and by The Humanist Association of Ireland, asking people to consider carefully their answer to the question about religion.
Recruitment
The Central Statistics Office hired a temporary field force of 5,500 people. The recruitment was performed in a pyramid structure, with 50 senior managers, 440 field supervisors, and 5,000 enumerators hired in succession. Hiring of senior managers for the census took place between 29 April and 12 May 2010. Recruitment of 440 census field supervisor positions began on 16 September 2010. The supervisors worked from their own homes around the country for a six-month contract. The 5,000 census enumerator positions were advertised on 29 December 2010, and these worked for ten weeks from 8 March 2011.
Field work
Enumerators began a field campaign on 10 March 2011 to deliver about 1.8 million census forms to every household in Ireland in the month before Census Day. Following the census, the forms were collected between 11 April and 9 May 2011.
Questions on the census form
Results
The first statistics were released in the Preliminary Population Report on 30 June 2011. The population on Census Night in April was 4,581,269, a figure based on summary counts for each enumeration area compiled by enumerators on the front page of the census forms. This figure was 110,569 more than the estimated population for April 2010. The definitive census publication, based on the scanned and processed census forms, is to be published between March and December 2012.
