There were 19,673 male-female marriages in Ireland in 2019 according to figures published by the CSO yesterday. This was down from 20,389 the previous year.

Same-sex weddings also decreased slightly from 663 to 640.

The average age of grooms in complementary-sex marriage was at its highest to date at 36.8 years, while the average age of brides was 34.8.

In 2019, religious ceremonies accounted for the highest proportion of such marriages (60.2%).   There were 8,863 (45.1%) Catholic marriage ceremonies, 289 (1.5%) Church of Ireland ceremonies, 53 (0.3%) Presbyterian ceremonies while The Spiritualist Union of Ireland performed 1,512 (7.7%) marriage ceremonies in 2019.  The remaining 1,131 (5.7%) couples opted for other religious ceremonies.  Civil marriage ceremonies were the most popular choice for non-religious marriage ceremonies accounting for 6,012 (30.6%) of all opposite-sex marriages.  In recent years the Humanist Association has also risen in popularity with 1,813 (9.2%) such marriages in 2019 compared to 1,766 (8.7%) in 2018.