One in four members of ‘Gen Z’ look set never to have children, a new paper from the Iona Institute forecasts. The paper is called ‘Choice or Circumstance? Rising Childlessness in Ireland’. The document examines trends in childlessness by generation starting with women born in 1955 (the ‘baby boomers’). It finds that only 13.5pc of...
The Iona Institute was very pleased to host an outstanding talk by Melanie McDonagh (pictured below) on her widely reviewed new book, ‘Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century’. In front of a packed room, Melanie explained the social and religious conditions that led hundreds of...
Plunging marriage and birth rates show Ireland is now on the wrong course in very important ways, a new paper from The Iona Institute says. The paper examines social trends over the last few decades in respect of births, marriage and family overall. Outside of the Covid years, the country’s marriage rate is now at...
There is a marked revival of interest in religion among young people in Northern Ireland, a major new poll commissioned by The Iona Institute has found. This is a clear reversal of the previous continual decline by age. The youngest age group polled, that is, the 18-24-year-olds, are more likely to have a ‘very positive’...
Well-known religious affairs commentator, Michael Kelly, recently gave a talk about Pope Leo XIV at a lunchtime event of The Iona Institute in a packed Central Catholic Library. He discussed the new pontiff’s life, his ministry and how he will respond to the challenges and opportunities currently facing the Catholic Church. He talked about the...
A major new poll commissioned by The Iona Institute reveals public attitudes towards the Catholic Church, Christianity and religion. This is one of the most wide-ranging polls published to date on the matter. It was carried out by Amarach Research. Here are the major findings: People are much more favourably disposed towards Catholic teachings than towards the...
The ongoing decline in religious practice will deepen our coming demographic crisis because it will almost certainly mean that fewer people marry and have children, a new paper from The Iona Institute says. This will accelerate population ageing, even allowing for high immigration. The paper, called ‘Religion, Marriage and Fertility: Shall the Religious Inherit Ireland?’ shows that...
A NEW paper from The Iona Institute shows that last year a quarter of all weddings that took place in Ireland were broadly ‘New Age’ in character, while Christian ceremonies accounted for not much more than a third of the total. The paper, by columnist Breda O’Brien, says that the Churches must respond to this challenge and...
Is an average family more fairly taxed now than they were in 1974? Taxation and the Family: Restoring Balance and Fairness, the Iona Institute’s new paper, analyses tax bands, credits and benefit payments and shows definitively that the answer is no. A family with one wage-earner and three children earning one and a half times the...
An Oireachtas committee has recommended euthanasia for those judged to be within six to 12 months of death. If we go down this path, we can fully expect there to be pressure to allow it on far more expansive grounds. We know this because pro-euthanasia advocates who appeared before the committee were quite clear on...
