'Seriously concerned' - Laois bishop raises alarm at declining marriage rate
Bishop Denis Nulty is the leader of the Catholic Church for most of the parishes in Laois
The State needs to support marriage to help arrest the negative trend in Laois and other counties, according to the Bishop who is head of the Catholic church for large parts of Laois, Kildare and Carlow.
Bishop Denis Nulty appealed in the wake of the latest Central Statistics Office figures for marriage rates, which show that fewer couples are getting married in Ireland year-on-year in 2025.
The CSO found that there were 19,898 marriages registered in Ireland in 2025, which included 624 same-sex marriages. The number of registered marriages fell by 2.2% from 20,348 marriages in 2024, and was down nearly 10% since 2015, when there were 22,025 marriages.
The 2025 CSO research revealed that there were 6,304 civil ceremonies and 5,927 Catholic marriage ceremonies. There were 288 marriages in Laois of which 140 were Catholic Church weddings.
The CSO publication followed on from a long-term analysis of marriages which revelealed that Catholic Church marriages in Laois halved the decade to 2024 from 290 in 2014 to 138 in 2024.
Bishop Nulty, who is responsible for large towns like Portlaoise, Portarlington, Mountmellick and Graiguecullen, commented on the changes.
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"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 policymakers 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,” he said.
Bishop Nulty is chair of the Council for Marriage and the Family of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
His diocese includes virtually all of Carlow, most of Kildare and large parts Laois and sections of counties Offaly, Kilkenny, Wexford and Wicklow. It is one of three suffragan dioceses in the ecclesiastical province of Dublin and is subject to the Archdiocese of Dublin.