The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has released its most recent marriage report. The new data provides statistical insight into Irish same-sex marriage for 2018, its third year since our historic win for equality in 2015.

Out of a total of 21,053 marriages in 2018, 664 of them were between people of the same-sex, accounting for 3.2% of all marriages.  372 were male unions and 292 were female unions, while the average age of LGBT+ newlyweds was 39.5 years, with male partners being 40.1 and female partners being 38.7 on average.

The most popular form of marriage for same-sex celebrations was civil marriage ceremonies. Out of 417 marriages, 121 were by The Humanist Association of Ireland, 89 by the Spiritualist Union of Ireland and the remaining 37 of same-sex couples had ceremonies with other religious denominations.

Over one-third of all same-sex marriage ceremonies took place in the Dublin City area, followed by Cork City with 6.2%.

The most popular month for same-sex marriages in 2018 was August, with 92 marriages. Friday was the most popular day, with over 246 marriages celebrated on that day.

Over 85% of same-sex marriages were first-time. Of the 1,328 individual same-sex partners in 2018, the majority (1,137) were previously single, 132 were previous civil partners, and 49 were divorced.

There were no civil partnership ceremonies in 2018 due to it being superseded by the new marriage legislation.

The CSO report shows that the LGBT+ community tends to marry approx. 4 years later in life than their heterosexual counterparts. They also are more likely to be married by non-denominational organisations, standing in stark contrast to opposite-sex couples, out of whom the majority opted for religious ceremonies.

The stats demonstrate the importance of marriage to the LGBT+ community and the true impact of the 2015 referendum. 600 same-sex marriages were carried out last year, 132 of which were between previous civil partners; these numbers exemplify the inadequacy of the former civil partnership institution and the universal desire to formally recognise love and commitment.