Percentage of Catholic weddings in Ireland

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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Although the decline does seem to be slowing. There was a 3% year-on-year decline in 2014 and again in 2015, but only a 2.3% decline in 2016.

You also have to take account of the fact that 2016, for the first time, includes same-sex marriages. From the link provided by Pherykedes, it seems that if you just look at opposite-sex marriages, 56.3% were performed in Catholic churches. That's actually 0.3% higher than the 2015 figure for 2015 quoted by Boom__Boom. So the downward trend may be bottoming out.

Apart from same-sex marriage, there are (at least) two other factors that influence this trend, I think.

- Divorce, and therefore second marriages, which won't be celebrated in a Catholic church. The 91% rate of Catholic church marriages from 1994 dates from a time when there were vanishingly few second marriages celebrated.

- Secularisation: People who could get married in a Catholic ceremony, but choose not to.

It would be interesting to see these figures broken out each year so that we could identify the proportion of opposite-sex, first marriages that are celebrated in the Catholic church. I've no doubt that proportion is declining, but it's obviously going to be higher than 56.3%. Again from Pherykedes' link there were 18,934 first-time opposite-sex marriages in 2016. If you assume that all of the 12,140 Catholic marriages were first-time opposite-sex marriages, then that yields a Catholic church marriage rate of 64.1% - which is still a huge decline from the 91% figure from 1994.

And it will be interesting to see if the "steady rate" of same-sex marriages turns out to be similar to the steady rate for civil partnerships prior to 2015.

Doctor DooM wrote: »

Absolutely anecdotal I know, but in the last couple of years I have attended 2 Irish weddings abroad, and turned down several others. Both of the ones I attended were directly in avoidance of "the usual Irish crap" and very specifically the catholic wedding (second marriages).

One of the couples wed in vegas and I do not think they had any form of civil ceremony when they returned. I wonder is there a significant number of "undocumented Irish" weddings.

They are documented - in Nevada. If you get married in Las Vegas you can't come back to Ireland and have have a civil wedding here, because you're already married.

Presumably these people are ticking "married" on the census form, so any count of the number of married couples in Ireland (as opposed to the number of marriages celebrated in Ireland) will include them.

This cuts both ways, incidentally. From the link provided by Pherykedes, about 13% of the weddings celebrated in Ireland last year were for couples living outside Ireland.

I suspect most of these weddings are young Irish adults living abroad, but they come home for the wedding because the wider family of at least one or both of the couple is here.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

I am of the thinking if 2 Irish residents go to Las Vegas and get married there and then return to Ireland, the Irish government would not recognise the marriage as they have circumvented the 3 months notice requirements.

Why would they treat it any differently to married foreign nationals moving here? They wouldn't have any knowledge of how much notice they gave.

My own friends got married in Copenhagen since they only had to give a month's notice there and it's perfectly valid here as far as I'm aware.

magicbastarder wrote: »

will also be interesting to see what the impact will be of the ageing demographic of catholic priests, and time pressures on them at the weekends to perform marriages. i've been to two weddings where the priest had to leave afterwards, to officiate at another ceremony.

Based on what I've heard from friends, at the moment it is still harder to find / book a non religious celebrant than a catholic one. There really needs to be a rule change to make it easier for people to get registered to perform weddings / marriages legally by a non-religious group.

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's already much easier to be registered as a non-religious celebrant. You need to join the Humanist Association of Ireland, get yourself selected, trained and accredited by them, and get them to nominate you to the Registrar-General as a solemniser. This isn't trivial, but it's a lot less demanding than completing the six years formation required for ordination in the Catholic church. Plus, you don't have to make a commitment to celibacy.

Which assumes you wanto to joint the Humanist association. Nothing against them but not everyone would want that.

A very quick glance at the figures shows:

Humanists performed 5.7% of marriages but have only 0.4% of registered Solemnisers
Civil cermonies were 28% of marriages but only 1.8% of Solemnisers
Catholics were 56% of marriages but they have 78.2% of Solemnisers.

You also have 3.7% Spiritualist with about 0.2% of Solemnisers. Any of their ceremonies that I have been to are for non-religious people.


Now that may not take into account certain things like retired priests but it does show that as there is a growing need for non-religious ceremonies and Solemnisers

8 Weddings in my office this year , 2 are 2nd time out (i.e. Divorcees) only 1 of the 8 will be a Catholic ceremony in a church and that church has been picked for the photos not the mass, the bride to be is very open about that. 3 humanist ceremonies including my own ,2 foreign (Malta & Cyprus) 1 civil ceremony (gay couple) and 1 registry office. Not one of my mates or their brothers have gotten married in a church , we've been to 6 weddings ourselves in the last 2 n half years and only 1 was a catholic ceremony in a Church (my OH's Cousin) and they only did that to keep his very religious Mammy happy.

We were offered the Cathedral in Killarney for our wedding (my Aunt was desperate for us to get married in a church), its a lovely building , would have gotten some amazing photos but id rather not get married at all then get married in that church or any catholic church , its a vile institution.

Id say if you were to ask people how many got married for the building , or because its the done thing or to keep the Mammy's / Granny's happy versus how many got married in a church because they are dyed in the wool Catholics that figure would drop off to about 20%.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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It would hardly be practical to ask people returning to the state 'did you get married abroad to circumvent the notice period and deprive the state of €300' and people going even to the UK and paying their fees would hardly make a saving on €300. Short of not recognising overseas marriages, how would they make residents comply with Irish laws?

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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There is no Irish law that requires people who marry abroad to give 3 month's notice to the Irish authorities; you only have to give notice if you intend to marry in Ireland. And obviously there's no point in taking steps to make people "comply" with a non-existent law.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

I wonder does it happen much that Irish citizens go abroad to circumvent the notice periods and deprive the state of the €300 fee?

It often happens that people marry abroad. I kind of doubt that in many cases there motivation for doing so is to avoid the notice requirement or to save €300.

In any event, as already noted about one in eight marriages celebrated in Ireland is of a couple who don't live here, but have come here to get married. They do give notice and pay the fee. So my guess would be that wedding tourism probably represents a net gain, not a net loss, to the Irish state.