Ireland’s marriage rate since 1864: consistently low (mostly)

The CSO has just made available its annual reports ^[1] on births, deaths and marriages covering the years 1864-2000. Looking at the marriage figures only, they tell us that Ireland’s marriage rate has been remarkably consistent over the period, consistently low that is.

In 1864, the marriage rate per 1,000 of the population was 4.8. In 1922, it was 4.8 and by 2011 it was 4.3. There was an increase beginning in the 1960s that brought us to a peak of 7.5 in 1973 and then it was all the way down again.

In a column ^[2] in The Irish Times a few weeks ago (we responded here ^[3] and here ^[4]), Fintan O’Toole made a big deal out of the fact that our marriage rate has been so stable down the years but he left out two very salient counter-facts, namely that our rate has traditionally been very low by international standards, and it did rise a great deal in the 1960s and 1970s.

Some of the reports published by the CSO show our marriage rate compared with the marriage rate in Northern Ireland, in England and Wales and in Scotland. The 1973 report does this for example.

It shows that in 1964, when our rate was 5.6 marriages per 1,000 of the population, it was 7.3 in Northern Ireland, 7.5 in England and Wales and 7.7 Scotland.

By 1973 our marriage rate had more or less caught up with our neighbours.

In this chart ^[5], Eurostat provides details of the marriage rates across Europe since 1960. We can see again that our marriage rate has historically been very low by European standards but now it is just about smack on the European average. And why is that? It’s because the marriage rate almost everywhere has plunged to our low level.

So yes, with the exception of the 1960s and 1970s, our marriage rate has been very consistent, but to repeat the point from the opening paragraph, it has been  consistently low and therefore nothing to write home about.