Bishop Denis Nulty of Kildare & Leighlin is chair of the Bishops’ Council for Marriage and Family (Catholic Communications Office archive)
Bishop Denis Nulty said, “The latest CSO data, recording marriages in 2025, that was published today, shows fewer couples getting married in Ireland year-on-year. This worrying trend applies regardless of whether marriage was celebrated as a sacramental ceremony, or otherwise.
“Together, as people of faith and all citizens up to the level of policymaker in Government, we ought to be seriously concerned at our declining marriage rate. Marriage is positively correlated with stability in families and that of wider society in general. With over sixty years of operation, Accord is very well established as the only all-Ireland service that provides preparation to couples ahead of their married life, but help is needed. No doubt but that the decline in marriage numbers is a policy area meriting immediate State intervention, and investment, in the interest of the common good.”
Bishop Denis Nulty is Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin and chair of the Council for Marriage and the Family of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
ENDS
- Today’s figures from the Central Statistics Office show that, in 2025, civil ceremonies, and Catholic marriage ceremonies, were the most popular choice for opposite-sex couples, accounting for 6,304 and 5,927 of the 19,274 ceremonies.
- Accord Catholic Marriage Care Service was established in Belfast in 1962 and, today, Accord’s marriage preparation and couples counselling services are offered island-wide in more than 50 centres. Accord is managed from three corporate centres based in Maynooth, Dublin and Belfast. Accord’s Sacramental Marriage Preparation programme is grounded in the real life experience of couples today. It is purposeful, encouraging and fully oriented towards emphasising the good and beautiful aspects of married life. It is also very practical in providing couples with exercises, tools and resources to communicate more effectively with each other and to manage conflict constructively. See Accord’s website for more information.