People who get married in the Republic are increasingly doing so later in life, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office.
The age profile of those getting married has changed significantly over the last decade as has the popularity of ceremonies other than the traditional religious marriage ceremony.
Today’s CSO figures relate to marriages that took place in 2002 but also give a picture of general trends over the last decade.
There was a huge jump in the number of those who were married in 2002 in their thirties, with almost 60 per cent of grooms being aged thirty or over on their wedding day.
This figure is more than double the percentage of grooms aged thirty or over in 1990 (28 per cent). The proportion of older brides has also more than doubled since 1990, from 16.2 per cent aged thirty or over in 1990 to 44.2 per cent of brides aged thirty or over in 2002.
The increased age profile of people getting married in Ireland is not the only significant change over the last decade. The number of civil marriages almost quadrupled from 928 in 1996 to 3,683 in 2002. This represents an increase from 5.7 per cent of all marriages in 1996 to 17.9 per cent in 2002.
A contributing factor to this increase is believed to be the legalisation of divorce in 1997 and the consequential increase in the incidence of re-marriage.
August was the most popular month for marriage in 2002 with 17 per cent of marriages taking place during that month. The least popular months were January and February, with just 3 per cent of marriages taking place in each of these months. Saturday is the most popular day of the week to get married with almost 40 per cent of marriages occurring on that day. The least popular day was Sunday when just 2 per cent of marriages were recorded.
The number of Roman Catholic marriage ceremonies increased from 14,607 in 1996 to 15,908 in 2002. However, this increase masked a significant decline, from over 90 per cent to 77 per cent, in the proportion of all marriages accounted for by these ceremonies.
The number of Church of Ireland ceremonies increased from 483 to 781, or from 3 per cent of all marriages in 1996 to 3.8 per cent of all marriages in 2002.
The number of marriages for other religious denominations, that are licensed to register marriages, showed very little change over the five-year period from 1996 to 2002, increasing from 156 to 184.
