Irish couples getting married later

IRISH couples are marrying later in life, while the number of civil ceremonies has quadrupled in recent years, it emerged yesterday.

The average age of grooms in 2002 was 32.5 years, compared with 30.2 years in 1996 and 28.6 years in 1990, new figures revealed.

The pattern for brides is similar with the average age increasing steadily from 26.6 years in 1990 to 30.4 years in 2002.

The Central Statistics Office figures showed almost 60% of Irish grooms were aged over 30 on their wedding day in 2002, compared to 42.4% in 1996 and just 28% in 1990. The proportion of older brides has also increased, with 44.2% aged 30 or over in 2002 compared with 27.7% in 1996 and 16.2% in 1990.

Couples in the Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown area were the most reluctant to wed in the country. The average age of brides and grooms in the area in 2002 was the nation’s highest at 34.8 years for the men and 32.4 years for their partners.

The lowest average age of grooms was in the Longford area at 30.4 years, while the lowest average age for brides was 28.7 years in Co Donegal.

There were 20,556 marriages registered in 2002, up almost 4,400 on the 1996 figures, the CSO statistics showed.

The number of civil marriages almost quadrupled from 928 in 1996 to 3,683 in 2002. This represents an increase from 5.7% of all marriages to 17.9%.

A contributing factor to this increase was the legalisation of divorce in 1997 and the consequential increase in the incidence of remarriage.

The number of Catholic marriage ceremonies increased from 14,607 in 1996 to 15,908 in 2002. However, this increase masked a significant decline, from over 90% to 77%, in the proportion of all marriages accounted for by these ceremonies.

The quadrupling in the number of civil marriages, with the proportion of the total increasing from under 6% to almost 18%, accounted for this decline in the Roman Catholic share.

The number of Church of Ireland ceremonies increased from 483 to 781, or from 3% of all marriages in 1996 to 3.8% of all marriages in 2002.

The most popular month for marriage in 2002 was August, when 17% of marriages took place.

The least popular months were January and February, with just 3% of marriages occurring in each of these months.

Saturday was the most popular day of the week to get married with almost 40% of marriages taking place on that day. The least popular day was Sunday when just 2% of marriages were recorded.