Source

These statistics have been compiled from the marriage registration forms of all marriages registered in the Republic of Ireland in 2020.

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.

Methodology

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 2020 (and hence included in these statistics) occurred in years before 2020.

Form of Ceremony

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 and The Spiritualist Union of Ireland. Civil Marriage and The Humanist Association have been classified under their respective ceremony.  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. 

http://www.bls.gov/soc/soc_structure_2010.pdf

Area of Residence

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.

Age Specific Marriage Rates

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. 

This is calculated for each year as follows:

Marriages per 1,000 population = Number of Marriages registered multiplied by 1,000 and divided by population.  The 2020 usual residence population is 4,977,443. 

Table 2, provides age specific marriage rates in respect of males and females in opposite-sex marriages and also provides rates for all male same-sex and all female same-sex marriages in preference to rates for all marriages from 2020.

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. 

Same-Sex Marriage Legislation

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. 

New NUTS2 and NUTS3 regional Authority areas - January 2018

From 1st January 2018 an Amendment of the EU NUTS legislation came into effect.  This reflects the new regional assembly structure and the other changes to the Local Government Act for Tipperary North, Tipperary South, Limerick City and County, Waterford City and County.  The composition of the new Regions breakdown is outlined below.  

EU-27 Countries

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.