Nearly two thirds of Irish people who don’t go to religious services each week give “just don’t 
bother” as their reason, according to a new study.
The survey, conducted by sociologist Fr Micheál MacGréil, found that, for Catholics, 68.1pc said they didn’t attend because they just didn’t bother.
This compared to 14.3pc of Protestants expressing the same reason for not attending.
The survey, published in Fr MacGréil’s latest book, Pluralism and Diversity in Ireland, published yesterday, also suggested that 10 per cent of people did not attend religious services because of work commitments.
Referring to this, Fr MacGréil said that this change was “an inevitable consequence of the demise of the Sabbath as a day of worship and rest”.
He said that the impact of the change was wider, and suggested that a return to a work-free Sunday “could have wide-ranging personal and social, as well as religious, benefits for society”.
The survey showed that religious practice in the Republic of Ireland had declined dramatically since 1981, when just over 82pc of people claimed to be attending weekly Church services.
By 2007-8, a survey conducted by Fr MacGréil showed that weekly attendence had fallen to 42.1pc. The data showed that 54.4pc were attending Church services on a monthly basis.
The figures showed that this figure was lower for those aged between 18-25, with only 20pc of this age cohort attending weekly church services, most Mass.
By contrast, 80pc of those aged 71 and over attend weekly Church service, according to the survey.
In terms of background, the survey showed that those who reported being born in a city were only half as likely to report attending weekly Church service compared with those born in a rural area.
Only 29.5pc of those born in an urban setting attended weekly Church services, while 63pc of those from a rural background said they attended weekly services.
The survey also showed that education level had a major impact on the level of religious practice.
According to the study, only 34.1pc of the 35.4pc Catholics who have reached third level attend weekly Mass.
Fr Mac Gréil also noted that the weekly attendence of Catholic who reported having completed secondary schooling was 38.7pc, which was 4.8pc lower than the overall number of Catholic population.
This did not reflect, he said “all that well on the Catholic ethos of the the secondary schools attended by the vast majority of these respondents”.
However, the study points out that the number of people identifying as Catholics has remained remarkably constant over time.
In 1861, the number of people in the 26 counties which now comprise the Republic of Ireland identifying as Catholic was 89.4pc; in 2006, that number was 86.8pc.