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TWO IN FIVE couples who got married last year opted for a Catholic ceremony, figures from the Central Statistics Office show.
There were 23,173 marriages in 2022 compared with 17,217 in 2021, an increase of 35%.
This increase is reflective of the lifting of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and the resulting impact on marriage numbers in 2022. The overall number of marriages in 2022 exceeded pre-pandemic 2019 figures by 14%.
There were 22,555 opposite sex marriages and 618 same-sex marriages last year.
In 2022, religious ceremonies accounted for 64% of all marriages.
There were 9,376 (40%) Catholic marriage ceremonies and 284 (1.2%) Church of Ireland ceremonies. The Spiritualist Union of Ireland performed 2,299 (9.9%) ceremonies and 2,986 (13%) couples opted for other religious ceremonies.
The majority of non-religious ceremonies were civil marriages which accounted for 26% (6,071) of all marriages. The remaining 2,157 (9.3%) couples had Humanist ceremonies.
The average age for brides and grooms remained unchanged in 2022 from 2021. The average age for brides was 35.4, while for grooms it remained 37.4 in 2022.
“The average age of men in an opposite-sex marriage was 37.4 years while the average age of men in a same-sex marriage was higher at 39.4 years. The average age of women in an opposite-sex marriage was 35.4 in 2022, while the comparable age for women in a same-sex marriage was 38.2 years,” CSO statistician Seán O’Connor said.
July was the most popular months for both opposite and same sex marriages in 2022. January was the least favoured month to tie the knot for all couples.
“Friday and Saturday continue to be the most popular days to tie the knot for opposite-sex couples, while Friday, followed by Thursday were the most favoured days to wed for same-sex couples,” O’Connor said.
“These are unchanged from 2021 results. Sundays and Tuesdays were the least popular days of the week to marry for all couples.”
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Why feel the need to comment and berate on others personal decisions. If you don’t want a Catholic wedding fine don’t, but it’s none of your business if others do .
@DB: Are Christians so easily put off? Maybe they need some faith. It shouldn’t bother anyone that other people make other choices.
@DB: the irony in your comment is delicious, considering the RCC’s historic condemnation of others.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: “we should not forget now that religion comes to us in this ingratiating manner because it has had to give so much but never forget how it behaved when it did believe it truly had god on its side”. Christopher Hitchens
@Joey Navinski: the church, not two joe soaps who are getting married and baring the brunt of peoples resentment against the institution as a whole.
@DB: exactly
@A$AP ETH: if you’re a member (or facilitator) of the institution you condone the institution.
Nice to see people thinking for themselves
@Cullen Cullen: Yes, I got the RCC off my baptismal and birth certs and they were put there without my consent. Also, made sure no RCC priest involved in my Burial and the RCC are a big greedy cult!
@Emmet Murphy: Curious to know what country you were born in that recorded your religion?
@Emmet Murphy: ah that’s good for you well done
@Longlin: They did have a space for recording baptismal names on birth certs which would be a way of recording that you are some denomination of Christian, don’t know is it still a done thing.
@Longlin: Republic of Ireland, we were handed over to RCC by our political leaders over one hundred years ago and no one could fart without the RCC’s permission!
Write the alternative headline, 3 in 5 have a bit of cop on.
@JustBEERbarry: I wonder how many of those opting for religious ceremony are paying for their own wedding? Often it’s sponsored by older relatives who like the idea, and if a couple are free to make their own choices, they would spend their own money differently. Nothing wrong with choosing a compromise that makes others happy, but personally I think the Catholic Church has more than enough money.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: I think a more telling stat would be how many of those couples that chose a Church wedding actually regularly attend mass.
And I definitely think a lot of it is “I’d never do that to my parents, of course we’ll have a church wedding”. Not to mention, many people are just culturally Catholic as opposed to practicing. They like the idea but not really interested in the actual religion.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: Not sure I follow the logic of your comment. 99% of the costs involved wedding ceremonies are the same if you are getting married in a Church, Hotel, a beach, or registry office.The costs are to do with hospitality , photographers , flowers , clothes, travel and everything else .. The average local parish church / PP doesn’t charge people to get married in their local parish church.
Yes people make a modest donations and usually leave some of the flowers afterwards for benefit of the church. Yes there some churches is very scenic locations that charge a fee but compared with renting other venues it’s very modest. If people want to married in RC or CoI church etc let them be , but it’s a completely inaccurate to imply that the RCC charge formal wedding service fees.
@XvSv: Every local church was built and is maintained with money from parishioners. The communities pay taxes – the Church doesn’t. Yes, they certainly do charge a fee. Nowadays people choose where they prefer to sign the register. People have a choice.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: exactly. The parishioners (who attend regularly) maintain the church. Not those who swan up looking for pretty pictures on their big day. Asking them to pay for light, heat, etc does not seem unreasonable. Any venue would do the same.
@XvSv: I thought she was saying that when parents are paying for or contributing to a wedding they hold a certain amount of sway over where the ceremony is held.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: the Catholic church NEVER has enough money
@Pharmy: Fiona was implying that those people who opt to have RC marriage ceremony have to pay a large fee to Roman Catholic Church, and this amounts to significant cost (tax) if held in RC Church . She also stated the church has enough money . The premise of the statement is complete nonsense .. there are so many holes it doesn’t warrant a reply.
No RC parishioner has to pay a formal fee to their local PP to partake in RCC sacraments be it Baptism, Communion,Confirmation,Wedding or a funeral, the premise of Fiona’s statement are false.
If the average couple are in their mid 30s and if the same time they cannot make a mature decision on their own, but are still worried about what their parents think, then perhaps they shouldn’t getting married .. they are not sixteen anymore…
In 2022, the average cost of a wedding in Ireland is €29,900.
Thats 0.8% of the wedding costs above. It seems that in this particular arena the RCC/priest/venue is the most reasonable of the expences and is comparible to the legal & paperwork fees of a civil marriage. Personally I have no problem with that fee. Our local church struggles to pay its normal bills so clearly doesn’t have huge income. The priest gets paid twice a year: Christmas Day Collection and Easter Sunday Collection. Yet he’s available year-long and the drop of a hat for last-rites, funerals etc.
Opposite sex couples. Ffs journal, what’s wrong with saying a men and women.
@ggg: because The Journal don’t believe man = male and woman = female
@ggg: That would be grammatically incorrect for a start.
But the use of the terms “opposite sex couples” and “same sex couples” are literally shorter and more succinct phrases than “marriages between a man and a woman” and “marriages between two men and marriages between two women”.
This has absolutely nothing to do with culture war debates about gender identity, despite your best effort to imply that there is an ulterior motive here.
Three out of five did not.
Times are changing, and it’s for the better.
Now, if five out of five children could get their education without indoctrination, we’d be really getting somewhere.
So you could get a good deal on the price if you choose a Tuesday in January.
Any takers..
That would be an ecumenical matter!
Most young couples have lost the run of themselves. Going into serious debt over one day. Why all the expense? Hotels know they are onto a good thing so intended couples are easy prey. A wedding reception can now cost an average of€30k. The choice of type of wedding ceremony is very much personal religious or lay.
Marriage, is anther tradition hijacked by the church for their own benefit and it is a man made event.
Kevin Collins, I think you might be trying a bit to hard fella, I’m fully aware why they can’t bring themselves to say a marriage between a man and a woman.
Because it might not be?
Are the Spiritulists religious??
@Irish Antichrist: You’d have to ask each individual spiritualist but going on the meaning of the word religion I’d guess that most wouldn’t be. If they were part of a spiritualistic group with rites, tenets and hierarchy then it’d be safe enough to say that they had a religion and are religious.
Whether you are married or not, in the event of divorce, you’ll still lose out. Oh, and divorce has increased.
@AnthonyK: As women became more independent and don’t have to stay with a husband in order to have a reasonable standard of living of course divorce has increased.
Speaking as a believer I’m not sure ‘Spiritualist’ in this context isn’t really religious. In can be between religious people, especially interfaith marriages and it isn’t overtly unreligious like Humanist ceremonies but I’m not sure I’d categorise it as religious per se.
Why is this even relevant ..?
@Stuart Doherty: Think harder.
So?
have your say