Two censuses: religion and the politics of recognition

The politics of recognition in Ireland related to inequalities of Catholics leading its census of 1861 to cross tabulate occupations and religion. The unique sociological value of these Irish statistics has never been recognised. As a social laboratory at the time, what was permitted in Ireland was debarred on grounds of privacy in England and Wales. Whereas colonisation necessitated a politics of recognition of religion in Ireland, in England, and Wales, it was not to be included in the census until 2001. Much resistance related to the wish to reduce religion to a matter of ethnicity. This ambition rendered linking religion with occupation unthinkable in terms of its divisive outcomes on ideals for inclusion and multi-culturalism. Thus, by default, the innovations of the Irish 1861 census were exceptional in ways that rendered the census of England and Wales regressive in what it could include.