These statistics have been compiled from the marriage registration forms of all marriages registered in the Republic of Ireland in 2016.
The release has been prepared by the Central Statistics Office for the Minister for Social Protection in accordance with the provisions of Section 2 of the Vital Statistics and Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, 1952 and Section 73 of the Civil Registration Act, 2004.
Where the weekday and month of a marriage are specified in this release, it refers to the date on which the marriage occurred. Note that some marriages registered in 2016 (and hence included in these statistics) occurred in years before 2016.
Marriages celebrated according to the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, the rites and ceremonies of the Church of Ireland, the forms and disciplines of the Presbyterian Church, the usages of the Methodist Church, the usages of people professing the Jewish religion, The Spiritualist Union of Ireland and the Humanist Association have been clasified under their respective relegions. The usages of certain other Religious Bodies have been classified under 'other religious'. (Tables 1, 13,13A,13B, 14, 15 and 17 refer)
| Standard Occupation Codes (SOC2010) |
This classification is determined by a person’s occupation. The men and women whose marriages were registered from 2012 onwards were classified by standard occupation codes. This replaces the socio-economic group classification used up to 2011.
| Standard Occupation Codes | Occupations included are as listed |
| 0 | Unemployed, Retired, Student and occupation unknown |
| 1 | Managers, Directors and Senior officials |
| 2 | Professional occupations |
| 3 | Associate professional and Technical occupations |
| 4 | Administrative and Secretarial occupations |
| 5 | Skilled trades occupations |
| 6 | Caring, Leisure and other service occupations |
| 7 | Sales and Customer service occupations |
| 8 | Process, Plant and Machine operatives |
| 9 | Elementary occupations |
http://www.bls.gov/soc/soc_structure_2010.pdf
Four classifications of district are available: that in which the marriage took place, the areas of residence of the bride and groom prior to marriage, and the intended future residence.
The age specific marriage rates are calculated as follows:
Age Specific Rate = Number of Males (or Females) of that age whose marriages were registered multiplied by 1,000 and divided by Population of Males (or Females) of that age. The small number of marriages for which the age is not stated are distributed in proportion before this calculation is made.
This is calculated for each year as follows:
Marriages/Civil Partnerships per 1,000 population = Number of Marriages/Civil partnerships registered multiplied by 1,000 and divided by population. The 2016 usual residence population is 4,673,745.
Civil Partnerships, introduced by the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act 2010, enabled same-sex couples to obtain legal recognition of their relationship and this regulation was enacted on the 1st January 2011.
The Marriage Act 2015 (No 35/2015) effective from the 16th November 2015 (S.I 504/15 refers) allows parties of the same sex to marry.
The regional classifications in this release are based on the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units) classification used by Eurostat. The NUTS3 regions correspond to the eight Regional Authorities established under the Local Government Act, 1991 (Regional Authorities) (Establishment) Order, 1993, which came into operation on 1 January 1994. The NUTS2 regions, which were proposed by Government and agreed by Eurostat in 1999, are groupings of the NUTS3 regions. The composition of the regions is set out below.
| Border, Midland and Western NUTS2 Region | Southern and Eastern NUTS2 Region | ||||
| Border | Cavan | Dublin | Dublin City | ||
| Donegal | Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown | ||||
| Leitrim | Fingal | ||||
| Louth | South Dublin | ||||
| Monaghan | |||||
| Sligo | Mid-East | Kildare | |||
| Meath | |||||
| Midland | Laois | Wicklow | |||
| Longford | |||||
| Offaly | Mid-West | Clare | |||
| Westmeath | Limerick City | ||||
| Limerick County | |||||
| West | Galway City | North Tipperary | |||
| Galway County | |||||
| Mayo | South-East | Carlow | |||
| Roscommon | Kilkenny | ||||
| South Tipperary | |||||
| Waterford City | |||||
| Waterford County | |||||
| Wexford | |||||
| South-West | Cork City | ||||
| Cork County | |||||
| Kerry | |||||
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.
Usual residence population concept
For the purpose of this release the population concept of usual residence has been used, i.e. all persons usually resident and present in the State on census night plus absent persons who are usually resident in Ireland but are temporarily away from home and outside the State on census night. All persons are classified according to their region of usual residence.