New data from the Central Statistics Office shows that 19,898 marriages were registered in Ireland last year, including 624 same-sex unions.
This represents a 2.2% drop from the 20,348 marriages recorded in 2024, and a 9.7% decrease compared to 2015, when there were 22,025 marriages, reports RTE.
The CSO stated that the marriage rate per 1,000 people stood at 3.6 in 2025, compared to 4.7 in 2015.
The average age for couples in opposite-sex marriages was 36.1 years for brides and 38 years for grooms in 2025, rising from 33.2 and 35.3 years respectively in 2015, reports RTE.
For same-sex marriages, the average age was 40.6 years for men and 38.1 years for women.
The figures also show that civil ceremonies and Roman Catholic ceremonies were the most common choices for opposite-sex couples, accounting for 6,304 and 5,927 respectively out of 19,274 ceremonies in 2025, reports RTE.
Friday emerged as the most popular day for weddings in 2025, while August was the most popular month.
A Catholic bishop described the findings as “a worrying trend” and said there is a need for State intervention, reports RTE.
The Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Denis Nulty, said this concern applies regardless of whether marriage is celebrated as a sacramental ceremony or otherwise.
Bishop Nulty, who chairs the Council for Marriage and the Family at the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said that people of faith and the wider public — including government policymakers — should be “seriously concerned” about the falling rates, reports RTE.
Marriage “is positively correlated with stability in families and that of wider society in general,” he said, reports RTE.
Bishop Nulty added that the decline represents “a policy area meriting immediate State intervention, and investment, in the interest of the common good”, reports RTE.
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