Ireland’s marriage rate has now reached its lowest ever level, not including the years of the pandemic. At 3.8 marriages per thousand adults last year, the rate has fallen below the EU average and is very likely to fall even lower.
In 2024, there were 19,680 opposite-sex marriages registered in Ireland, marking a 4.1pc decrease from 2023’s total of 20,513. The marriage rate for opposite-sex couples now stands at 3.7 per 1,000 adults. The current EU average [1] is approximately 4.0 per 1,000.
The new marriage data [2] from the CSO confirm a trend that has emerged over the past few years: the rise of “New Age” weddings [3] and the decline of traditional religious ceremonies.
Catholic ceremonies remained the most popular form of marriage, but only just, accounting for 32.6pc of opposite-sex marriages in 2024, though this represents a notable 11.5pc decline compared to 2023. The decline in Church of Ireland ceremonies was even more dramatic at -20.2pc last year. Conversely, “Other Religious” ceremonies increased significantly (+16.2pc) and now represent almost 20pc of all ceremonies.
To this must be added ceremonies conducted by the ‘Spiritualist Union of Ireland’ which accounted for 7.1pc of the total. This means ‘New Age’ weddings accounted for around 26pc of all wedding ceremonies last year.
Among non-religious ceremonies, humanist weddings declined by 10.8pc year-on-year, while civil ceremonies also saw a slight decrease in numbers (-1.3pc).
Civil ceremonies include Christians who marry abroad, and also Muslim or Hindu couples, for example, who do not have a religious solemniser recognised by the State here.
Wedding ceremonies in Ireland have undergone substantial changes since 2007, the year when civil ceremonies were first permitted outside registry offices. Today, many hotels offer religious ceremonies performed by solemnisers belonging to new ‘religious organisations’, explaining the explosion of “other religious” ceremonies.
Last year, The Iona Institute produced a paper looking at the rise in ‘New Age’ weddings in Ireland and the steep decline in traditional religious ceremonies. You can find the paper here [4].
In our next blog we will look more closely at current marriage trends, including marriage rates by age, age of marriage, and the differences between the type of marriage ceremony individuals marrying for the first or a second time opt for.