The Central Statistics Office in Ireland has released a new batch of figures, which reveal a lot about marriages and civil partnership trends in Ireland in 2015.
The new stats show that Irish couples are getting married later than ever before. The average age of grooms in 2015 was 35.3 years. In the past 50 years, the average age of grooms has gone from 26.2 years (in 1977) and to a high of just over the 35 mark last year.
Women are waiting longer to tie the knot too, with the average age of brides in Ireland jumping from 24.0 (also in 1977) to a record high of 33.2 in 2015.
In total though, Irish people are still getting married as much as they did before with 22,025 marriages taking place In last year, just 20 less than in 2014 when 22,045 marriages took place.
Scroll down to read the nine most interesting Irish wedding facts...
Irish couples are still opting for traditional religious ceremonies too, the statistics show. Of all the weddings, a majority of 66.3 per cent were religious, mostly Catholic, followed by Church of Ireland. But there was also an increase in alternative ceremonies, with Humanist ceremonies rising in popularity with 1,264 in 2015.
Since the historic gay marriage referendum passed with flying colours in Ireland in May 2015, and legislation came into effect on the 16th November 2015, there have been 376 civil partnership ceremonies in Ireland. 250 of those were male unions and 126 were female unions. The stats show that most of those newlyweds are living in the vast majority Leinster area, with most residing in Dublin. In the period to the end of 2015, there were 91 same-sex marriages in Ireland.
There was a slight fall off in the rates of divorce with the number of going down by over 10 per cent. The latest data available shows there were 2,629 divorces granted by the Circuit Court and the High Court in 2014.
Nine things we learned about weddings in Ireland from the latest CCO figures:
1. Everyone loves August
For the fourth consecutive year, August was the most popular month for marriages in Ireland in 2015, but that’s no guarantee it didn’t rain
2. January really does give everyone the blues
January continued to be the least popular month for marriage ceremonies with only 3.5 per cent of marriages occurring during that month
3.Weekend weddings rule
Friday and Saturday were the most popular days of the week to get married with 69.2 per cent of marriages occurring on those days. The least popular day was Sunday
4. Save the date
Friday 31st July and Saturday 1st August were the most popular dates for marriage in 2015 with 276 (over 1 per cent) marriages taking place on each of these days
5. Old maids, and even older grooms
The average age of grooms in 2015 was 35.3 years, 0.3 years more than the average age in 2014. In the past 50 years, the average age of grooms has decreased from 29.4 years in 1965 to a low of 26.2 years in 1977 and has increased to a high of 35.3 years in 2015. A similar trend is evident for brides with the average age decreasing from 26.0 in 1965 to 24.0 in 1977 and has increased to a high of 33.2 in 2015
6. Weddings per person
The number of marriages registered in 2015 was 22,025 which equates to a crude (unadjusted) marriage rate of 4.8 per 1,000 population
7. Nothing average about us
According to 2013 stats, the Lithuanians, Cypriots, Maltese, Latvians, Romanians Swedes and Danes all get married a bit more than the Irish, but we get married more often that the UK
8. First time for everything
In 2015, 88.1% (19,400) of marriages were the first marriage for both the groom and bride. The breakdown between grooms and brides was 20,250 (91.9%) grooms and 20,546 (93.3%) brides marrying for the first time.
9. Ireland says yes!
There were 376 civil partnership ceremonies in 2015, 250 male unions and 126 female unions, and 91 same-sex marriages since the Yes campaign won a landslide victory in the same-sex marriage referendum in May 2015.
Source: CSO
