Tracing our Irish ancestry

With 17 March being St Patrick’s Day, you might be asking yourself the question: How many people on the Sunshine Coast claim to have Irish ancestry?

Thanks to Sunshine Coast Council’s suite of web-based demographic tools, the question is a fairly easy one to answer.

Here are some facts:

In 2016, 13% of Sunshine Coast's population nominated Irish as one of their ancestries.

This is a higher percentage than Brisbane (12.3%), South-East Queensland (12.2%), Queensland (12%) and Australia (10.2%).

The five areas with the highest percentages (proportionally) were:

• Maleny - Witta - North Maleny (16.3%)
• Coolum Beach - Mount Coolum - Yaroomba - Point Arkwright (15.9%)
• Caloundra - Kings Beach - Moffat Beach - Shelly Beach (15.4%)
• Caloundra Central Activity Centre (15.2%)
• Mapleton - Flaxton - Obi Obi (14.8%)

This link provides the “heatmap” for concentrations of Coast residents with Irish heritage: https://bit.ly/3cCjUMV

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census of Population and Housing, 2016