Population According to the
Central Statistics Office, 139,703 people lived in County Louth as of the
2022 census, a 7.9% increase since the
2016 census. The population density of the county is 169.1 people per square kilometre, more than double the national average, which makes Louth the second most densely populated county in the Republic of Ireland, and the fourth most densely populated county on the island of Ireland. As of 2022, Louth was also the second most urbanised county in the State, with 69.7% of the county's population living within urban areas. Under Central Statistics Office (CSO) classification, an "urban area" is a town with a population greater than 1,500. As a result, much of the county outside of the larger towns is relatively sparsely populated, with most small areas (SAs) having a population density of between 20 and 50 people per km2. The county has two dominant population centres,
Dundalk, located in the north of the county, and
Drogheda, located in the south on the border with
County Meath. These two towns combined comprise approximately 58.9% of the county's total population, and are the 6th- and 7th-
largest urban areas in Ireland respectively. Overall, Drogheda is the larger of the two. Louth has experienced a rapid rate of population growth since the 1960s, nearly doubling in size in the fifty years between the census of 1966 and that of 2016. Its rate of growth (7.9%) since the 2016 census ranks 13th of 26 counties. The sizeable population growth in the county is influenced by its location along the
Dublin–Belfast corridor; with the completion of the
M1 motorway in particular driving the growth of Drogheda as a commuter town of
Dublin. However, the northern areas of the county along the border with
Northern Ireland have experienced a slight decline since 2011. In 2016, Louth surpassed its pre-famine (
1841 Census) population, becoming one of only five counties in the State to do so. As of the 2022 census, 5.9 per cent of the county's population was reported as younger than 5 years old, 28.1 per cent were between 5 and 25, 51.8 per cent were between 25 and 65, and 14.2 per cent of the population was older than 65. Of this latter group, 4,591 people (3.3 per cent) were over the age of 80. The population was evenly split between females (50.68 per cent) and males (49.32 per cent). In 2021, there were 1,677 births within the county, and the average age of a first time mother was 30.5.
Urban areas The most populous towns in Louth as of the 2022 census were (population in parentheses):
Ethnicity and migration As of the 2022 census, the population of County Louth was 85.9% white. Those who identified as White Irish constituted 76.7% of the county's population, and
Irish Travellers comprised a further 0.7%. Other white people who did not consider themselves ethnically Irish accounted for 8.5% of the population. The second largest ethnic group in Louth in 2022 was black, accounting for 3.3% of the population. Of this group, virtually the entire population lived in the two largest towns, with 56.5% of Louth's black residents living in Dundalk and 36.2% living in Drogheda. Those of Asian and Mixed Race backgrounds accounted for 2.7% (3,808 people) and 1.7% (2,333 people) of the population respectively, with the majority of these groups residing in either Drogheda or Dundalk. Around 9,000 people or 6.4% of the population did not state their ethnicity in 2022, a significant increase from 2.5% in the 2016 census. In contrast to the other counties in the
Mid-East Region, which are characterised by widespread migration from the Dublin area, Louth has one of the highest proportions of native residents in Ireland. Around two-thirds (64.5%) of Louth's residents were born within the county, making it the 7th most indigenous county in the State. People from elsewhere in the Republic of Ireland accounted for just 13.9% of Louth's population in 2022, compared with 49.2% in neighbouring
County Meath to the south. A total of 30,145 people (21.7%) were born outside of the country, up from 24,509 people (19.2%) in 2016. The largest foreign national groups by citizenship in Louth are:
British (1.69%),
Polish (1.50 percent),
Lithuanian (1.40 percent),
Nigerian (0.97 percent),
Latvian (0.89 percent) and
Romanian (0.57 percent).
Irish language The
Cooley Peninsula was the last outpost in Leinster. Speakers of
Irish existed around
Omeath and into southern
Armagh up until the middle of the 20th century. The area had its own local dialect, songs, poetry and traditional customs. The dialect, known as , is now extinct, as the last native speaker, Anne O'Hanlon, died in 1960 at the age of 89. However, extensive recordings of the dialect were made by German linguist Wilhelm Doegen for the Royal Irish Academy in 1928. An Irish language college, , was originally established in Omeath in 1912, but later moved to
Ranafast,
County Donegal. In 2012, celebrated its 100th anniversary in Omeath, and locals were taught phrases in . Uniquely, the Cooley Peninsula had a sizable population of
Presbyterian in the late 18th and 19th centuries, owing to its proximity to
Ulster. In 1808, Reverend William Neilson published "An introduction to the Irish language" to distribute to Presbyterian ministers in the area, as many in their congregations could not speak English. Despite its historic , Louth has the lowest percentage of Irish speakers of any county in the State. Just 31.8% of the population stated that they could speak any level of Irish in the 2022 census.
Religion , a 1,000-year-old
oratory in
Louth village According to the
Central Statistics Office (CSO), the Catholic Church is by far the largest religious institution in County Louth, with 100,077 members.
Orthodox Christianity was the second largest religious denomination, with 2,598 adherents. This was followed by
Islam in third, with 2,281 adherents, and
Anglican denominations including the
Church of Ireland,
England and Episcopalian in fourth, with 2,195. The county is located within the
archdiocese of
Armagh in the Roman Catholic Church, and the Archbishop of Armagh has been recognised by the
Vatican as the "
Primate of All Ireland" since 1353. This was replicated in the Church of Ireland following the
Reformation, and the Protestant
Diocese of Armagh covers the same territorial extent as the Catholic diocese. Further, the
Archbishop of Armagh also has the title of Primate of All Ireland within the Church of Ireland. As was the case in much of Ireland, there was a significant increase in the number of people stating that they were either non-religious or
atheist in the 2022 Census. This demographic has increased by 202% in a little over a decade (2011 to 2022), from 5,485 to 16,556. People with no religion now account for 11.9% of the county's population, up from 8% in 2016. The fastest growing religions in the county between 2016 and 2022 were
Hinduism (107%), Orthodox Christianity (80%) and
Pantheism (78%), while the most rapidly declining religions were
Lutheran (−23%),
Evangelicalism (−19%),
Buddhism (−13%) and
Apostolic or
Pentecostal (−11%). Although Catholicism only recorded a 4.3% decrease, the share of County Louth's residents who identified as Catholic fell sharply from 81.8% in 2016 to 72.1% in 2022. ==Local government and politics==