Going down – our income and our fertility: CSO figures give fascinating snapshot of Kilkenny lives

NEW figures released by the Central Statistics Office  (CSO) give a very interesting snapshot of Kilkenny city and county. They show our level of income is lower than average – and so is our fertility rate!

They also show that we like to heat our homes with oil (first choice for 55% of Kilkenny households) but have gone right off the old turf fire.

The CSO has found that only 1% of homes in Kilkenny are heated by peat or turf.

By contrast, the figure for Offaly is just under 38%, the highest in the country.

The statistics show just 7.6% of people in Kilkenny are living alone. The highest rate by far is in Dublin city where flat-dwelling singletons push the figure to 58%.

One quarter of all over-65s in Kilkenny are loving alone. The highest rate (32.7%) is in Leitrim.

The fertility rate in Kilkenny is now below the theoretical replacement level of 2.1, having fallen to 1.8. The most fertile county is Longford where couples are reproducing at rate of 2.5.

Immigration will help keep Kilkenny’s numbers up: 8.4% of our population are now recorded as non-Irish.

Disposable income in Kilkenny is 8% below the national average. Dublin is 9.8% above the average and Donegal more than 16% below.

The figures, just published, are for the years 2016 and 2017.