A new paper released by The Iona Institute has confirmed what many faithful Catholics in Ireland have felt instinctively for years: the country is drifting far from the basic social foundations that once gave it strength, stability, and a future. Titled On the Wrong Course: Birth, Marriage and Family Trends in Ireland, the report shows that both marriage and fertility rates have now sunk to their lowest recorded levels outside of the pandemic years—and the consequences are not just cultural or spiritual, but deeply demographic.
It is hard to overstate the seriousness of what is being described. Ireland’s total fertility rate has now fallen to 1.5, far below the replacement level of 2.1. That means, in blunt terms, that today’s population is not replacing itself. One hundred Irish citizens can now expect to have only 57 grandchildren. For a country that once prided itself on large, close-knit families, this represents a serious rupture.
The marriage rate tells a similarly stark story: down from 5.2 marriages per 1,000 adults in 2004 to just 3.8 in 2024, well below even the EU average. This collapse cannot be dismissed as a temporary trend or a lifestyle shift. It is a sign of a country abandoning its own future, trading long-term commitment and fruitfulness for rootlessness and delay.
As Breda O’Brien of The Iona Institute rightly notes, “The fact that our marriage rate and fertility rate are now at the lowest levels ever recorded ought to ring alarm bells.” But the greater scandal may be that hardly anyone in public life is sounding them.
Where is the political will to address this? Where is the Church’s clear call to restore a culture of marriage and family life? Where are the pro-family policies that actually serve those who want to start families—not in their late 30s when biology and circumstance have already closed so many doors, but in their 20s, when hope and health are still on their side?
The paper is clear: economic pressures are real, from rising housing costs to job insecurity. But they do not fully explain what’s happening. What we are witnessing is also a cultural shift, where marrying young is seen as reckless, and having children is treated as an optional lifestyle accessory rather than a natural fulfilment of love and life. The average age for marriage in Ireland is now almost 38 for men and 36 for women, a full decade older than in the 1980s—even though economic conditions were arguably worse back then.
As O’Brien points out, many people still want to marry and have children. The aspirations are there; the desire is there. What’s missing is a culture, and policy provisions, that helps them act on that desire before it’s too late. The result is a rise in what demographers now call "unplanned childlessness"—a sterile phrase for a deeply painful reality.
Ireland is not alone in facing these pressures, but it should be well placed to speak with clarity and courage on the issue. As a Catholic nation—albeit largely cultural in practice today—it ought to hold a vision of the family not as a mere social unit, but as a vocation. Every child should be seen as a blessing, not a burden, and marriage understood not as a relic of the past, but as a living call to sacrificial love.
The Iona Institute has done a great service by placing the facts in front of us. The question now is what will be done. Will our political leaders continue to ignore the looming demographic winter, hoping someone else will pay the cost? Or will Ireland finally start to rebuild the cultural and economic supports that allow marriage and family life not just to survive but to flourish again?
