One in nine people in Northern Ireland now view themselves as having no religion, a new study has found.
It says that 11.5 per cent of the 1.7 million population see themselves as having no religion. This puts 193,500 people in the non-religion category.
"The results show that secularisation has progressed as far in Northern Ireland as anywhere else, despite the religious nature of the society," said the Australian author of the study, Prof Ian McAllister.
"If this trend continues secularisation will represent the second or third largest group in Northern Ireland society by the time of the next census in 2011," he added.
The evidence indicates that "disaffection with politics" is the reason for the growth in this secular group, according to the report published by ARK - the Northern Ireland Social and Political Archive - which is a joint initiative between Queen's University and the University of Ulster.
Citing a variety of recent reports, Prof McAllister found that those with no religion are more likely to come from Protestant rather than Catholic families. He also found that there had been a "significant decline" in church attendance among Catholics.
In the 1980s two-thirds of Catholics and Protestants attended a religious weekly service but by 2000 that figure was down to 50 per cent. In 1989, 90 per cent of Catholics went to Mass once a week but that has now dropped to around 65 per cent.
The findings however do not necessarily indicate a trend away from traditional unionist and nationalist politics. "The results indicate strong support for the view that disaffection from politics has been a motivation to reject religion.
However, this move towards secularisation does not suggest a reduced role in politics for religion," said Prof McAllister.
"In particular, people who are the most religious are often the most politically active, and so exert the most influence on parties and politicians. If secularisation is to have any impact on the political process, those who see themselves as secular will have to re-enter politics and influence it from within," he added.
Prof McAllister is based at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He received funding from the Nuffield Foundation for this project to work with ARK in 2004/5 and carried out the research while based at Queen's University, Belfast.
The report uses a pooled dataset, combining the Northern Ireland social attitudes surveys (1989-1996), the Northern Ireland life and times surveys (1998-2004), the 1998 Northern Ireland referendum and election survey and the 2003 Northern Ireland election study.
