Tyrone gave almost £60million to charity in 2023

LOCAL people are markedly more generous than most other areas of the UK, according to new statistics.

In fact, people West Tyrone donated over £18million to charity in 2023, with altruists in Mid-Ulster almost matching that figure exactly.

Fermanagh and South Tyrone donated over £20million.

This means the three constituencies covering Tyrone donated roughly over £56million to charity last year.

According to figures from Charities Aid Foundation, 69 per-cent of people in West Tyrone donated to various causes last year, at an average rate of 2.9 per-cent of their income.

In Mid Ulster, those numbers were 70 per-cent, at 2.6 per-cent of their salary. Meanwhile, in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, it was 70 per-cent, at 2.8 per-cent.

Across the entire UK, 58 per-cent of people donated to charity, putting Tyrone constituencies approximately 11 per-cent above the broader baseline.

In fact, the North as a whole was generally much more open to giving than most other regions of the UK, especially England.

For example, people in Tyrone gave around four times more, as a proportion of their income, than people in Kensington and Bayswater.

The researchers said, “Overall, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are greatly over-represented in the top 100 most generous constituencies.”

The nature of the causes that attracted people’s generosity seen a shift in 2023, with donations to foreign campaigns falling by around 50 per-cent, despite a number of high-profile disasters and conflicts, not least the the conflict in Gaza.

Across the UK, ‘religious organisations’ garnered the greatest portion of our charitable investment, followed by ‘children and young people’, ‘animal welfare’, ‘foodbanks’, ‘overseas relief’, ‘disabled people’, ‘homelessness’, then ‘medical research’.

While the overall picture appears reasonably positive, the researchers tempered our temptation toward self-satisfaction by highlighting the impact of inflation.

“A donation of £20 to charity in 2017 would have needed to increase to more than £25 to enable the charity to buy the same amount of goods and services in 2024.”

Across the UK, £13.9 billion was donated to charity last year.