There is probably no country in the Western world where the Catholic Church has come under more sustained attack than Ireland. The reason is perhaps that in no other Western country did the Catholic Church exercise such influence for so long in the 20th century.
A major new study going by the cumbersome title, ‘Historical Political Cleavages and Post-Crisis Transformations in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, 1953-2020’, highlights how far things have fallen.
Over the period 2011 to 2016, 19% of Irish people said they never went to church, but by last year this had jumped to an incredible 50%. That’s higher than in Italy or Portugal (30% and 18% respectively), but lower than in Spain where the equivalent figure is 61%.
The report also states that there has been a much smaller drop in regular church attendance (monthly or more), which has fallen from 33% to 28%.
What seems to have happened in the meantime is that those who were only loosely connected to the Church have now become completely disconnected, except maybe for weddings, funerals and the like.
In other words, the big fall hasn’t been in regular church attendance, but in sporadic attendance. Just under half of Irish people were coming to church less than once a month four or five year ago and this is now just 22%. Many of those sporadic attenders have stopped coming altogether.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe