Northern Ireland remains divided on religious grounds, but a widely shared recognition that the UK’s membership of the EU protects peace and prosperity is boosting the prospects of Remain-supporting candidates, whatever their religious affiliation, and putting some DUP seats at risk

A third of the 1,536,065 population of Northern Ireland in the 1971 census, the year before the violence of the Troubles reached its murderous peak, was Catholic. Now, with the peace achieved by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement seeming threatened by Brexit and the prospect of the UK leaving the European Union, the population stands at an estimated 1,891,100, of which around 45 per cent is Catholic.

But that bald demographic figure hides other changes that help explain why in the 2016 EU Referendum Northern Ireland, where Catholics predominantly identify as Irish and Protestants as British, 55.79 per cent voted Remain. In the UK as a whole, 51.89 per cent voted Leave. The Remain vote was strongest along the border with the Irish Republic; 78.3 per cent voted Remain in predominantly Catholic Foyle, which includes Derry, 62.9 per cent in more mixed Newry and Armagh, and 58.6 in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, which has an even sectarian split. That same sectarian pattern was reflected in Belfast, with Remain dominating in Catholic areas of Belfast West and mixed middle-class Belfast South. Belfast North, which includes the streets that had the highest murder rates throughout the Troubles because of the juxtaposition of divided working-class areas, was Remain but with a smaller margin.