Derry has the fifth most amount of sheep across the counties in Ireland

County Derry has the fifth-most sheep on the whole island of Ireland, according to new data. 

The figures were obtained from a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs (DAERA) by Derry Now and from the Ireland National Sheep and Goat Census 2023, which was compiled by the Republic’s Department of Agriculture’s Animal Identification and Movement (AIM) database.

Only Antrim (603,451), Donegal (526,658), Tyrone (446,005), and Mayo (444,830) had more than Derry’s 408,969 sheep. 

The county with the fewest sheep is Limerick, with 18,437. In total, the island of Ireland had 5,769,588 sheep, with 3,769,588 in the Republic and 2,046,834 sheep in the North.

Derry occupies third on the list in Northern Ireland from the figures from June 2023 provided by the DAERA. 

Down (358,138), Fermanagh (126,971), and Armagh (103,300) are fourth, fifth, and sixth, respectively, on the list in Northern Ireland. 

In terms of election constituencies across Northern Ireland, when the four in Belfast are counted as one, Foyle has the third fewest number of sheep, with only 20,010. 

Only Belfast with 7,024 sheep and North Down with 5,618 sheep had less. 

Meanwhile, East Derry had the third-most sheep across Northern Ireland's election constituencies, with 253,704. 

Only West Tyrone (348,372) and North Antrim (295,120), respectively, had more than East Derry.