Catholic Church in Ireland
In the 2016 Irish census 78.3% of the population identified as Catholic in Ireland; numbering approximately 3.7 million people. Unlike Catholics in the United States, Ireland has seen a significant decline from the 84.2% who identified as Catholic in the 2011 census.
Act of Settlement 1662
In 1600, Catholics had owned 90 percent of land in Ireland, by 1641, this was 41 percent (the fall due largely to the rise of the Plantation of Ulster) but by the time of the accession of James II in 1685, after the Cromwellian Settlement, the proportion of Irish land owned by Catholics had fallen to 22 percent; after the restrictive Treaty of Limerick (1691), that number had been reduced to 14 percent, and by 1800, after more restrictive anti-Catholic Penal Laws, the number fell further to just 5 percent.