Northern Ireland

13 Ulster Scots speakers in England and Wales according to Census

The results of the 2021 Census for England and Wales have shed light on the number of Irish and Ulster Scots speakers across the two UK regions.
The results of the 2021 Census for England and Wales have shed light on the number of Irish and Ulster Scots speakers across the two UK regions.

THE Census results in Britain have revealed 13 people speak Ulster Scots in England and Wales.

The results of the 2021 Census, which does not include Scotland, found single speakers across nine regions including Cardiff, Wandsworth, Liverpool and New Forest, while there were four speakers of the dialect in the East Lindsey district in Lincolnshire.

The data also shows there were a total of 750 Irish speakers across England and Wales as of last year.

Outside of London, Liverpool had the highest number of people reporting Irish as their main language, with 35.

Other areas outside of the UK capital with a significant number included Leeds with 17, and Cheltenham - which is popular with Irish visitors due to the annual horse-racing festival - with 11.

Results for London were broken down by borough, with Hackney having the largest Irish speaking population with 23.

Among details for other boroughs, the city also had 19 Irish speakers in Islington, 18 in Brent, 13 in Southwark, and 12 in Bromley.

Meanwhile, over 91 per cent of residents in England and Wales had English or Welsh as their main language - a slight decrease from the 2011 results.

The Office for National Statistics reported that outside of English and Welsh, "Polish remained the most common main language accounting for 1.1 percent (612,000) of usual residents".

They also found Romanian has moved into the top 10 main languages outside of English and Welsh, with 0.8 percent overall speaking it - up from 0.1 percent in 2011, adding: "This was the largest increase over the decade".