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After a surge of weddings that may have been due to the end of the pandemic, religious wedding rates are beginning to fall on the Emerald Isle.
Marriages in Ireland were seen to largely bounce back from the pandemic years, but marriages within the Catholic Church have continued to decline. New data from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that while marriage rates are still a bit higher than the pre-pandemic 2019 figures, 2023 saw fewer marriages overall than 2022, with Catholic marriages lagging quite a bit.
According to the CSO’s data, there were 21,159 weddings in Ireland, in 2023, with 646 of them being same-sex unions. This is a 8.7% decrease in the total number of weddings from 2022, but the report notes that this is still 4.2% higher than the rates seen in 2019. In 2023, Aleteia previously reported that the recent surge in weddings is most likely due to couples having put off their marriages during the pandemic years.
Of the 20,513 marriages that could qualify to take place in the Catholic Church – which the report calls “opposite-sex marriages” – only 7,256 of them did so. This accounts for 35.4% of all weddings in Ireland in 2023, which is a significant decline from 2022, when 40% of all Irish weddings were held in Catholic churches. Of the remaining “opposite-sex marriages,” 6,474 (31.6%) were conducted as civil unions and 1,614 (7.9%) were “Humanist” ceremonies.
Continued below.
aleteia.org
Marriages in Ireland were seen to largely bounce back from the pandemic years, but marriages within the Catholic Church have continued to decline. New data from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows that while marriage rates are still a bit higher than the pre-pandemic 2019 figures, 2023 saw fewer marriages overall than 2022, with Catholic marriages lagging quite a bit.
According to the CSO’s data, there were 21,159 weddings in Ireland, in 2023, with 646 of them being same-sex unions. This is a 8.7% decrease in the total number of weddings from 2022, but the report notes that this is still 4.2% higher than the rates seen in 2019. In 2023, Aleteia previously reported that the recent surge in weddings is most likely due to couples having put off their marriages during the pandemic years.
Of the 20,513 marriages that could qualify to take place in the Catholic Church – which the report calls “opposite-sex marriages” – only 7,256 of them did so. This accounts for 35.4% of all weddings in Ireland in 2023, which is a significant decline from 2022, when 40% of all Irish weddings were held in Catholic churches. Of the remaining “opposite-sex marriages,” 6,474 (31.6%) were conducted as civil unions and 1,614 (7.9%) were “Humanist” ceremonies.
Continued below.
Catholic wedding rate in Ireland falls by nearly five points
After a surge of weddings that may have been due to the end of the pandemic, religious wedding rates are beginning to fall on the Emerald Isle.
aleteia.org
