Irish people are waiting longer [1] to get married and fewer people [2] are engaging in it, new figures from the Central Statistics Office [3] (CSO) show.
The average of an Irish groom now is just over 36 years of age, while brides are about two years younger.
In the past 50 years the average age of grooms decreased from 28.4 in 1968 to 26.2 10 years later, before rising to a high of 36.4 last year. A similar trend is evident for brides, with the average age falling from 25.5 in 1968 to a record low of 24 in 1978, and increasing to a high of 34.4 last year.
The number of all marriages (opposite-sex and same-sex) registered in 2018 was 21,053 which equates to a crude (unadjusted) marriage rate of 4.3 per 1,000 population, 0.3 less than the 2017 rate. This is 968 fewer marriages than in 2017 when 22,021 marriages took place.