Attendance at British colonial "Church of Ireland" slumps to 17%

David Quinn:

WEEKLY church attendance in one of the heartlands of Protestant Northern Ireland, the Church of Ireland diocese of Down and Dromore which takes in Belfast, has slumped to just 17pc, according to new figures.

In addition, there has also been a big falloff in the number attending Sunday School, and in the number of babies being baptised.

The figures were made public by the Bishop of Down and Dromore Dr Harold Miller, in his address to the diocese's annual synod.

They are contained in a 434-page report on the diocese which follows on from a parish-by-parish visitation conducted by Bishop Miller over the last number of months.

He said that according to the most recent national census, conducted in 2001, there were 91,000 people in the diocese who said they were members of the Church of Ireland.

However, he said that 20,000 of these "are missing", because they do not show up on parish lists.

He noted: "Presumably those 20,000 are so far out on the fringe that they are unknown to us."

More worryingly for the diocese, of the 91,000 who consider themselves to be Church of Ireland, only 15,800 are in church in an average week in the diocese.

This translates into weekly church attendance of just over 17pc.

Nice to see that one of the institutions of British colonialism in Ireland is on the decline.