If you’re not religious, say so! We’re encouraging people to tick the ‘None’ option on the 2021 Census. Below you can find out more about one aspect of this campaign.
Pledge to tick ‘no religion’ ✅
If you live in Northern Ireland, the religion questions on the census are more complicated than they are in England and Wales, as there are two religion questions rather than one.
The first is ‘What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’ If you do not believe in or practise a religion you should tick the ‘None’ box. This is so that when decision-makers decide whether to keep funding religious state schools or require compulsory religious worship in state schools, the number of non-religious people isn’t undercounted in the census data they have available to help them.
The ‘None’ box is the last option underneath the write-in box for ‘Other’. This location can make it easy to miss, make sure you look right to the bottom and do not write anything into the ‘Other’ box.
The second question is more complex and can be harder for the non-religious to know what to answer. It asks ‘What religion, religious denomination or body were you brought up in?’
Many commentators and politicians use this question to try to argue that people affiliate to one of the two historic communities in Northern Ireland: Catholic or Protestant. This is a problem because it may fail to consider how people choose to identify today.
You should answer this according to your own circumstances. If you were not raised at home to be religious there is a ‘None’ box at the bottom of the list. If you would prefer not to state an answer, the question is optional, and you can choose to give it a miss.