Percentage of Catholic weddings in Ireland

Walter H Price

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

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looksee

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

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Peregrinus

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.

magicbastarder

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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the notion of making someone comply with an irish law in a foreign country is a complex one, i bet.

rainbow kirby

Peregrinus wrote: »

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

Quite a few of these would be like us - emigrants coming back for the wedding. We had a humanist ceremony in May 2015.

Fred Swanson

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pilly

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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I could be wrong but I thought you still had to give notice. I've a friend who married in Greece and she still had to give notice here. Not sure if it was 3 months or not but I definitely remember her saying that she still had to follow procedures here so that her marriage would be recognised.

Hotblack Desiato

Some countries require a letter from the authorities in your home country stating that you are free to marry. Maybe it was that.

Of course this ignores the fact that you could have been married in a third country already and the authorities in your home country, if you don't live there, are unlikely to be aware of that :rolleyes:

Peregrinus

matrim wrote: »

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

Not everybody wants to join the Catholic church either.

But the Humanists don't have to be the only show in town as regards non-religious, non-registry-office marriages. Other organisations which celebrate marriages and which comply with the same statutory criteria that get the HAI in can apply for recognition, and can get their celebrants licensed as solemnisers. I just don't think any have applied.

A very quick glance at the figures shows:

matrim wrote: »

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.

Well, the church solemnisers aren't primarily engaged in solemnising weddings; they are priests in a variety of ministries, and I suspect many of them rarely or never celebrate weddings. Whereas the Humanist and Spiritualist solemniserwstend to be professional celebrants - that's all they do; it's how they earn their crust. So it wouldn't be suprising to find them celebrating far more weddings than the typically church-registered solemniser.

matrim wrote: »

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

There is certainly a growing need. My point is that the number of non-religious solemnisers is not artificially depressed by the imposition of special barriers to getting registered as a solemniser. There's no limit to the number of solemnisers the HAI can register, and the training and accreditation that the HAI has to give to its solemnisers is considerable less than the training/accreditation most churches give to the solemnisers that they register. And if there are people out there dissatisfied with the willingness of the HAI to train, accredit and register sufficient solemnisers to celebrate weddings in the way desired, there is nothing to stop them organising a separate body and applying for recognition.

Peregrinus

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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The fact that they haven't made the amendment you suggest might indicate that the primary policy objective here is not collecting the €300 fee.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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They may find, if push comes to shove, that their marriages aren't recognised in Ireland.

If you, e.g., indicate on your tax return that you are married, the Revenue will normally accept that at face value. They don't demand sight of your marriage certificate, and they certainly don't embark on a quest to establishe if you were ever married before, and if that marriage was validly terminated. So in practice you can get official treatment as a married couple for a prolonged period.

Where problems arise it's usually (a) when the second marriage breaks down, or (b) when there's a squabble over inheritance rights, and the question of the validity of the divorce/the second marriage is raised. Of course, in any particular case its quite possible that this will never happen. But if it does happen, it's disastrous; only the lawyers benefit.

Peregrinus

pilly wrote: »

I could be wrong but I thought you still had to give notice. I've a friend who married in Greece and she still had to give notice here. Not sure if it was 3 months or not but I definitely remember her saying that she still had to follow procedures here so that her marriage would be recognised.

Nope. Civil Registration Act 2004 s. 46(1)(a)(i):

"A marriage solemnised in the State, after the commencement of this section, between persons of any age shall not be valid in law unless the persons concerned . . . notify any registrar in writing in a form for the time being standing approved by an tArd-Chláraitheoir of their intention to marry not less than 3 months prior to the date on which the marriage is to be solemnised . . ."

The notification requirement only applies to marriages solemnised in the State.

Marriages celebrated abroad are registered abroad. They are not registered in Ireland, even if one or both spouses is an Irish citizen or an Irish resident. Because they are not registered in Ireland, there are no Irish notice or other requirements to be complied with before registration can be made.

Obviously, I don't know what your friend who married in Greece had to do, but it wasn't giving notice of her intention to marry. Possibly she had to obtain a letter of freedom from the Irish authorities to satisfy Greek requirements - many countries require this - but, if that were the case, she needed the letter not so that her marriage would be recognised in Ireland, but so that it could take place in Greece.

seamus

One thing which may be skewing the figures are people holding ceremonies abroad but getting legally married in a registry office in Ireland.

This allows someone to have a church wedding in a romantic foreign location without the hassle of having to comply with local laws or get the marriage cert translated into English.

Ultimately it still means that the wedding is about the event rather than the religion, but it does mean that some people will still be having religious ceremonies that aren't recorded in the domestic statistics.

They may find, if push comes to shove, that their marriages aren't recognised in Ireland.

Recognition of foreign divorces is fraught with complications. Every now and again a thread pops up about someone who got a quickie marriage abroad and then regretted it, and obtained a foreign divorce.

But Irish law doesn't recognise a foreign divorce if you're resident in Ireland. Even worse if you got divorced before 1986. So I think you're right that a lot of people are probably not "legally" married in the strictest sense and don't realise it. I do think if push came to shove though, whatever agency discovered these "invalid" marriages would be told to quietly stop pulling at that thread. TDs hate having to deal with issues where there's religious polarisation.

Peregrinus

seamus wrote: »

. . . But Irish law doesn't recognise a foreign divorce if you're resident in Ireland. Even worse if you got divorced before 1986. So I think you're right that a lot of people are probably not "legally" married in the strictest sense and don't realise it. I do think if push came to shove though, whatever agency discovered these "invalid" marriages would be told to quietly stop pulling at that thread. TDs hate having to deal with issues where there's religious polarisation.

It's not usually a state agency that's doing the thread-pulling. The registrar's office will refuse to marry you, or to issue documentation allowing you to marry in Ireland, if they think your foreign divorce is invalid. But they won't stop you going off and celebrating a marriage in another jurisdiction, and they won't be involved when you come home and, e.g. notify the Revenue or the Dept of Social Protection that you are married.

Where things come unstuck after that, it's not state agencies pulling at threads; it's family members, usually with a financial interest, making a claim in respect of the breakdown of the first marriage, or the breakdown of the second marriage, or squabbling over assets in the estate of one or other of the parties to the second marriage, who has died. In that case the question of the validity of the second marriage comes before the courts, and TDs can't "quietly tell" the courts what to do in this (or any other) case. The courts wouldn't like that at all.

Walter H Price

seamus wrote: »

One thing which may be skewing the figures are people holding ceremonies abroad but getting legally married in a registry office in Ireland.

This allows someone to have a church wedding in a romantic foreign location without the hassle of having to comply with local laws or get the marriage cert translated into English.

Ultimately it still means that the wedding is about the event rather than the religion, but it does mean that some people will still be having religious ceremonies that aren't recorded in the domestic statistics.

Recognition of foreign divorces is fraught with complications. Every now and again a thread pops up about someone who got a quickie marriage abroad and then regretted it, and obtained a foreign divorce.

But Irish law doesn't recognise a foreign divorce if you're resident in Ireland. Even worse if you got divorced before 1986. So I think you're right that a lot of people are probably not "legally" married in the strictest sense and don't realise it. I do think if push came to shove though, whatever agency discovered these "invalid" marriages would be told to quietly stop pulling at that thread. TDs hate having to deal with issues where there's religious polarisation.

I honestly don't know anyone that has gone away and gotten married in a Church all been Hotels bar 1 that was a beach wedding and 1 in Las Vegas, so i cant imagine that's skewing the figures too much tbh.

Peregrinus

Walter H Price wrote: »

I honestly don't know anyone that has gone away and gotten married in a Church all been Hotels bar 1 that was a beach wedding and 1 in Las Vegas, so i cant imagine that's skewing the figures too much tbh.

That may just reflect the social circle in which you move, Walter, which (like everybody else's) is limited. A sample of two foreign weddings among the friends of Walter H. Price yields none which was in a church; we really can't draw very many conclusions from this and any conclusions we can draw would about Walter H. Price.

There's a lively trade in Irish couples marrying in churches in Rome, and a couple of travel agencies which cater specifically to this market. As it happens, they don't need to have a civil ceremony when they come home; a church wedding is legally recognised in Italy and, therefore, in Ireland. But if people are travelling abroad to marry and are marrying in churches in Rome, it's not impossible that they are marrying in churches elsewhere too.

The huge decline notwithstanding, about two-thirds of first weddings celebrated in Ireland are in churches. You'd assume that foreign weddings are also split between church and non-church ceremonies. I wouldn't assume the split is the same; some of those who go abroad to marry do so, I suspect, partly as a strategy to avoid or resist family pressure for a church wedding. But many go for other reasons, and there would be no reason to assume that their attitude to the church/non-church question is any different to that of couples who chose to marry in Ireland.

Walter H Price

Peregrinus wrote: »

That may just reflect the social circle in which you move, Walter, which (like everybody else's) is limited. A sample of two foreign weddings among the friends of Walter H. Price yields none which was in a church; we really can't draw very many conclusions from this and any conclusions we can draw would about Walter H. Price.

There's a lively trade in Irish couples marrying in churches in Rome, and a couple of travel agencies which cater specifically to this market. As it happens, they don't need to have a civil ceremony when they come home; a church wedding is legally recognised in Italy and, therefore, in Ireland. But if people are travelling abroad to marry and are marrying in churches in Rome, it's not impossible that they are marrying in churches elsewhere too.

The huge decline notwithstanding, about two-thirds of first weddings celebrated in Ireland are in churches. You'd assume that foreign weddings are also split between church and non-church ceremonies. I wouldn't assume the split is the same; some of those who go abroad to marry do so, I suspect, partly as a strategy to avoid or resist family pressure for a church wedding. But many go for other reasons, and there would be no reason to assume that their attitude to the church/non-church question is any different to that of couples who chose to marry in Ireland.

My only point really was that I don't feel the figures would be that skewed , its not just my own social circle lots of people i know in work, or know of through friends extended family , my Fiance's job etc.. who have gone to or had weddings abroad , I've yet to hear of one being in a church i'd imagine its not all that common.

My own sense is that in Dublin anyway the number of church weddings is massively declining , less so down the country but give it 10 years and they'l catch up as alternatives become more readily available and socially normal.

Peregrinus

I agree that the decline in the proportion of weddings celebrated in church hasn't stopped yet. It will continue and we can't at this stage say where it will stop. Some clue - really, no more than a straw in the wind - can be got by looking at other societies in the Anglosphere which are subject to the same cultural influences as we are, but are more secularised. In Australia 30% of weddding are celebrated in churches. In England, 37%. In Scotland (where, as in Ireland, legally-valid humanist weddings are a possibility), 39%.

My hunch is that the "floor" in Ireland might turn out to be a little bit higher than this, if only because the most influential religious tradition in Ireland is Catholicism rather than Protestantism, and Catholicism denies the spiritual validity of civil weddings for its adherents, while Protestantism generally does not. In so far as Catholicism exercises any influence over people's choices in a largely secularised society, therefore, that influence is more likely to result in people choosing church weddings than a similar degree of Protestant influence would.

If we widen the picture beyond the Anglosphere, a more diverse picture emerges. France is a highly secularised society and, as we know, a civil wedding is mandatory for legal recognition; if you want a church (or humanist) celebration you have that in addition to a civil wedding, not instead of it (and, by law, the civil ceremony must come first). You might expect that to result in a very low rate of weddings being (re)celebrated in church, but not so; about 50% of French civil weddings are followed by a church ceremony. That might be an indicator of the residual influence of the Catholic position on weddings in a substantially secularised society.

Of couse, the non-church-wedding trend is only part of the secularisation picture. We also have to take into account the proportion of people who are in a committed relationship but are not married. This is harder to measure because not every couple that live together necessarily has the kind of committed conjugal relationship that is analogous to marriage (though undoubtedly many do). And of course some of those who are cohabiting do intend to marry, when they have the money, or after a couple of years of planning, and when that marriage occurs it may be in a church. Still, there's actually two distinct groups who are making choices that explicitly reject the Catholic position on marriage: people who are in a committed relationship but intend never to marry, and people who have married, but not in a church. And you need to take both into account when measuring the impact of secularisation on Irish practices when it comes to marriage.

spacecoyote

There is definitely a move away from traditional church weddings alright though it will take culture a while to catch up.

Myself & my wife were married in a civil ceremony.

At the time my grandmother asked "so are you really married now?"

So we explained that the ceremony we completed was the only official one that you needed to be married.

To which she answered "OK, so you're just not married in the eyes of god?"

Yes, that's it, were just not married in the eyes of god.

My sister got married in a church for a combination of reasons...wanting to keep the families happy & some nice photos in an old church.

The figures don't really tally with my experiences so I have a feeling the numbers are being diluted by ssm, second marriages, immigrant weddings etc.

I've been to about 20 weddings in the last 2 or 3 years 18 were proper catholic weddings, one was humanist and the other (which I didn't attend the ceremony) was civil. Both the non-catholic ones were people I knew through other people also rather than direct friends or family.

Even looking at my class from school (a lot still around the area and also on Facebook), the vast majority are having proper catholic weddings so the figures are definitely being skewed (on purpose I'd wager to suit an agenda) imo by certain factors.

seamus

"Skewed" means being unrepresentative of the actual data because of an excessive no. of outliers or misrecorded data. It doesn't mean, "doesn't tally up with my experience".

As a relatively religious and traditional person it would stand to reason that the majority of your social group would be having religious and traditional weddings.

Someone else may have only been invited to one religious wedding in the last twenty.

Murrisk

Aron Mammoth Prodigy wrote: »

The figures don't really tally with my experiences so I have a feeling the numbers are being diluted by ssm, second marriages, immigrant weddings etc.

I've been to about 20 weddings in the last 2 or 3 years 18 were proper catholic weddings, one was humanist and the other (which I didn't attend the ceremony) was civil. Both the non-catholic ones were people I knew through other people also rather than direct friends or family.

Even looking at my class from school (a lot still around the area and also on Facebook), the vast majority are having proper catholic weddings so the figures are definitely being skewed (on purpose I'd wager to suit an agenda) imo by certain factors.

All weddings are proper weddings. The immigrant thing doesn't stand up. The British are the biggest immigrant group but have been for years. After that it would be Polish and Brazilian - also countries with a large percentage of Catholics. I have to laugh at someone dismissing DATA by using ANECDOTE.

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magicbastarder

Aron Mammoth Prodigy wrote: »

I've been to about 20 weddings in the last 2 or 3 years

just to echo the above - 20 is hardly enough to generate a representative slice through the demographics, even if picked at random. and most assuredly, yours weren't.

i especially love the comment 'the numbers are being diluted by ssm, second marriages, immigrant weddings etc.'
THEY'RE PERFECTLY VALID MARRIAGES. they're not 'diluting' the figures, they *are* the figures. i'm not sure what point you're trying to make with that comment?

theteal

If we're going for randomly small sample sized anecdotes, of my close circle of friends, there were 5 weddings in the last 5-ish years. 3 were in churches, 2 were not.

60% is bang on. The figures speak for themselves

looksee

I haven't been to any weddings in several years...we are doomed, the death knell of the family, no more weddings!

John_Rambo

I'm the opposite of Nox001. Mostly non religious, modest weddings. Only one large classic, money collection Catholic wedding in the last few years.

recedite

Going to 2 this year, one is a humanist "first marriage". The other is a registry office "second marriage" where both parties were previously married with full RC church ceremony.
The humanist solemniser was chosen mainly for his ability to attend and deliver the required documentation at the chosen location, and not because either party had any interest in humanism.

At a C of E wedding I attended in the UK a couple of years ago, the groom was married in sandals and buddhist robes, and managed to have a few eastern mystic readings included. Bride wore a conventional white wedding dress. The C of E has to be one of the most laid back religions around :pac:

Perhaps flexibility is the key to providing the modern wedding service?

magicbastarder

magicbastarder wrote: »

just to echo the above - 20 is hardly enough to generate a representative slice through the demographics, even if picked at random. and most assuredly, yours weren't.

i especially love the comment 'the numbers are being diluted by ssm, second marriages, immigrant weddings etc.'
THEY'RE PERFECTLY VALID MARRIAGES. they're not 'diluting' the figures, they *are* the figures. i'm not sure what point you're trying to make with that comment?

Well they are diluting the figures (well ssm and remarriages anyway) as these didn't really exist in the past where as they do happen nowadays. The only fair way to compile the figures is to discount marriages that cannot happen in a church for what ever reason and calculate the percentage as being catholic weddings vs thouse that could have happened in the church it but didn't by choice.

I've been to 20 but I know of more than double that number of catholic weddings in the last few years of class mates, neighbours, work colleagues etc that I didn't attend. On the other hand non-catholic weddings are almost unheard of not just in my circle of friends but in the wider community etc.

meeeeh

Peregrinus wrote: »

If we widen the picture beyond the Anglosphere, a more diverse picture emerges. France is a highly secularised society and, as we know, a civil wedding is mandatory for legal recognition; if you want a church (or humanist) celebration you have that in addition to a civil wedding, not instead of it (and, by law, the civil ceremony must come first). You might expect that to result in a very low rate of weddings being (re)celebrated in church, but not so; about 50% of French civil weddings are followed by a church ceremony. That might be an indicator of the residual influence of the Catholic position on weddings in a substantially secularised society.

I think this conclusion might be to simplistic. More secularized societies tend to have a lot better laws around the rights of cohabiting couples. I've been to surprisingly few non religious weddings in Slovenia (where I come from) despite country being very secular. However those who are not religious just don't bother getting married because cohabiting rights are equalized after certain period.

magicbastarder

Aron Mammoth Prodigy wrote: »

Well they are diluting the figures (well ssm and remarriages anyway) as these didn't really exist in the past

what context are you placing that in though?
in terms of (i suppose in line with the ethos of the A&A forum) the waning influence of the catholic church, the ability for a same sex couple to get married and the numbers doing so is hugely relevant.

magicbastarder

to use a crude analogy, it's like claiming that suffrage diluted the influence of various political parties in the early twentieth century.

Pherekydes

Aron Mammoth Prodigy wrote: »

Well they are diluting the figures (well ssm and remarriages anyway) as these didn't really exist in the past where as they do happen nowadays.

Non-catholic weddings being counted means catholic weddings are no longer 100% of weddings!

Colour me totally shocked!

Fred Swanson

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eviltwin

Aron Mammoth Prodigy wrote: »

The figures don't really tally with my experiences so I have a feeling the numbers are being diluted by ssm, second marriages, immigrant weddings etc.

I've been to about 20 weddings in the last 2 or 3 years 18 were proper catholic weddings, one was humanist and the other (which I didn't attend the ceremony) was civil. Both the non-catholic ones were people I knew through other people also rather than direct friends or family.

Even looking at my class from school (a lot still around the area and also on Facebook), the vast majority are having proper catholic weddings so the figures are definitely being skewed (on purpose I'd wager to suit an agenda) imo by certain factors.

I'd be wary of assuming a Catholic wedding equals a sincere Catholic.

Any Catholic wedding I've been to in the last ten years has been for show only. None of the couples are practicing. None follow church teaching.

I think you mentioned before living in a rural area so I can see why most weddings you attend would still be traditional but on a national level it's not representative. When I got married 9 years ago my civil ceremony was unusual in my family and social circle, now most weddings I attend are civil.

Oh, and fyi, my marriage is just as valid and 'proper' as any that took place in a church.

Murrisk

And the figures have been dropping year on year. In 2016, it was something like 55% Catholic weddings.

Peregrinus

Murrisk wrote: »

And the figures have been dropping year on year. In 2016, it was something like 55% Catholic weddings.

Pherykedes was way ahead of you back in post 31.

It's actually 53.7% for 2016, but that's 53.7% of all weddings, including 1,056 same-sex weddings, which obviously couldn't be celebrated in a Catholic church regardless of the spouses' wishes.

The fact that same-sex weddings can be celebrated at all is obviously an important sign of secularisation in Ireland, and the fact that 1.056 couples actually celebrated them is another important sign. But if you're looking separately at people's choice of non-church over church weddings as a measure of secularisation, for a meaningful measure I think you have to count marriages celebrated in church as a percentage of marriages that could be celebrated in church. Crudely, that means you need to exclude same-sex marriages, and also marriages which are second marriages for one or both spouses.

This doesn't produce an absolutely accurate figure, since obviously there could be same-sex couples who belong to a church which will celebrate same-sex marriages - yes, Virginia, there are such churches, and in fact 3.4% of same-sex marriages were celebrated in religious ceremonies. Similarly there are churches which will celebrate second marriages, and the Catholic church will of course celebrate second marriages for people who have been widowed or who get a church annulment. Still, the proportion of first-time opposite-sex marriages celebrated in churches is probably a useful datum when to comes to measuring secularisation.

In 2016 there were 18,984 first-time opposite-sex marriages. There were 12,140 Catholic marriage ceremonies. Assuming all the marriages celebrated in the Catholic church were first-time opposite-sex marriages, that's about 64%.

Murrisk

So still quite a drop off. Interesting what the likes of Nox above would make of that. The figure doesn't anywhere near tally with his anecdotal observations. Even among the potential cohort for Catholic ceremonies, nearly four out of ten are deciding not to get married in a Catholic church.

Hotblack Desiato

Sure every church he goes to is full to bursting at the seams and all the priests are Irish and under 35.

#anecdotes

Peregrinus

Murrisk wrote: »

So still quite a drop off. Interesting what the likes of Nox above would make of that. The figure doesn't anywhere near tally with his anecdotal observations. Even among the potential cohort for Catholic ceremonies, nearly four out of ten are deciding not to get married in a Catholic church.

Well, no. Only 78% of the population identifies as Catholic. The total of 18,984 first marriages must include many couples where the spouses are not Catholic; presumably we can't include them in the "potential cohort for Catholic marriages". And, where one spouse is a Catholic and the other is not, the reason they don't turn up in the 12,140 Catholic marriages will in some cases be because they are marrying in the church of the other spouse.

We don't have figures for the religious affiliation of spouses; the Registrar doesn't collect that information. So we can't make the appropriate adjustments here.

The 64% figure is therefore fairly rubbery. I suggest the real significance is found not in the value of 64%, but the changes in that value from census to census. I haven't done the exercise for previous census, but I'd be fairly confident that the figure has declines significantly in the past 20 years, and is still declining.

Murrisk

It's untrue that people with non-Catholic future spouses can't be included in the cohort. My friend had a Catholic ceremony with her Anglican husband-to-be.

Anyhoo, no matter way you look at it, figures for Catholic ceremonies are dropping fast.

We are making the same point here. The variable you give above will make small differences, sure. But the upshot is that even taking out the people who we know for sure can't marry in a Catholic church, the numbers are well down. The group where one future spouse is not Catholic will make a small difference to the statistics but I don't think it would a statistically significant difference.

Peregrinus

Murrisk wrote: »

It's untrue that people with non-Catholic future spouses can't be included in the cohort. My friend had a Catholic ceremony with her Anglican husband-to-be.

No. I think we have two groups here:

First, couples where neither spouse is Catholic. The fact that these people don't choose Catholic weddings tells us nothing about secularisation.

Secondly, couples where one spouse is Catholic and the other not. If such a couple doesnt choose a Catholic wedding, that doesn't necessarily tell us anything about secularisation. They could still be having a religious wedding.

Take a step back. The relevance of first-time opposite-sex marriages is that they all could be celebrated in churches, if the couple wished. Hence knowing how they are celebrated provides a relevant measure of secularisation.

What we know from the published statistics is that more-or-less 64% of first-time opposite-sex marriages are celebrated in Catholic ceremonies. The other 36% are divided between:

- civil ceremonies and Humanist ceremonies (both basically non-religious)

- Spiritualist ceremonies (some of which are for non-religious couples and some for couples who are somewhat religious, but unchurched, and a few of which are actually for Spiritualists)

- ceremonies of other religious denominations (which we obviously can’t count as non-religious)

But we don't have a breakdown of the 36% between those categories. So we don't actually know what percentage of first-time opposite-sex marriages are celebrated in religious ceremonies.

Still, the dominance of the Catholic church in Ireland is such that measuring changes in that 64% figure probably does serve as a useful proxy for secularisation. If that figure is going down, it's not likely that other religious ceremonies are going up by enough to compensate for it. So while it doesn't give us an absolute measure of the secularisation of Irish society, it probably does give us a good indication of trends in secularisation over time.

Murrisk wrote: »

Anyhoo, no matter way you look at it, figures for Catholic ceremonies are dropping fast.

Yes, I agree.

And this is to be expected. The proportion of the population identifying as Catholic has been declining sharply. Wouldn't we expect a corresponding decline in the proportion of the population celebrating their wedding in Catholic ceremonies?

There's still a gap, of course. 78% of the population identified as Catholic in the 2016 census, but only 64% of first-time opposite-sex marriages in 2016 were celebrated in Catholic ceremonies.

I suspect the gap is partly explained by demographics. 78% Catholic identification is the figure for the population as a whole, but first-time oppose-sex marriages are overwhelmingly celebrated by people in their 20s and 30s. The breakdown of Catholic identification by age has not yet been published, but the breakdown of the non-religious population by age has been, and guess what? Non-religious identification peaks for people aged between 20 and 40. So it seems highly likely that the proportion of the population aged between 20 and 40 who identify as Catholic is well below 78%. When that statistic is published, we may find it's a good deal closer to 64%.

Murrisk

Yes, with less people identifying as Catholic, that of course means less people will have Catholic ceremonies. Naturally. I've not said otherwise? And I'm not surprised by the falling figures. You are going into a lot of detail to apparently refute me but are saying much the same thing.

Peregrinus

No, you misunderstand me. I'm not seeking to refute you; I think we're in broad agreement. Catholicism is in decline, and this is reflected both in the Census figures for those identifying as Catholic, and in the Marriage statistics for those marrying in Catholic ceremonies. And (again, I think we both agree about this) the decline has probably not finished yet; future Censuses/marriage statistics will show further decline.

My point is that the marriage statistics require a little bit of unpacking in order to see exactly what it is they do say about secularisation, and what they don't. But my conclusion, for what it's worth, is that they seem to be pretty much confirming what the census figures are saying. We'll have a better handle on that when the more detailed census results are released, but I'd be very surprised if they change that conclusion very much.

Murrisk

Oh, I see. Yeah, I've not been doing any great statisical analysis. I just wholly reject anecdote from anyone, unless just comparing as a matter of interest. Trying to disprove stats with anecdote is kind of a bit, I dunno, desperate? In my social circle, it's about 50/50, but it's a small sample size so that information is not particularly useful.

magicbastarder

100% of the marriages i have partaken in (as in actually getting married) have been secular. need we say more? catholic ireland is clearly dead and gone.

.........

Most of the people that do have Catholic weddings these days are just bluffing, and just do so to keep their elderly relatives happy, who seem happy enough to go along with knowing their sons and daughters are just bluffing it. Rather like the census bluffing that goes on. Cultural catholic would be a better term on the census form.

The_Valeyard

magicbastarder wrote: »

100% of the marriages i have partaken in (as in actually getting married) have been secular. need we say more? catholic ireland is clearly dead and gone.

Been to six Catholic weddings last year. Only one other secular.

Murrisk

Anecdote-sparring is pointless! I only mentioned my own social circle to highlight the uselessness of personal observations in this regard. My own circle would have a lower amount of Catholic ceremonies than the data shows. Others would observe higher. Population-level data is the only thing for it.