New figures show the number of people opting for a religious marriage ceremony has fallen consistently since 2015.

The Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection says 12,760 people had a religious marriage ceremony in 2018.

This compares with 14,560 in 2015, 14,513 in 2016 and 13,738 in 2017.

In contrast, the number of civil ceremonies has gone from 6,243 in 2015 to 6,279 last year.

While the number of secular ceremonies went from 1,309 in 2015 to 2,013 in 2018.

The proportion of religious marriages registered have dropped from two-thirds of all marriages registered in 2015 to 61% in 2018.

While the proportion of marriages conducted by the local civil marriage service has increased in each year since 2016 to stand at 30% in 2018.

Source: Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection,

Some 10% of all marriages registered last year were conducted by a secular body - a more than doubling of the proportion of such marriages registered in 2014.

The number of marriages registered in Ireland overall during 2018 was 21,052 - a reduction of 4.4% on the previous year.

Nearly 16,000 of those who got married were both Irish citizens; in just over 3,500 cases, one person was Irish.

While the number of same-sex marriages has fallen.

In 2016, 1,056 same-sex couples tied the knot here - this fell to 759 in 2017 and just 664 last year.

There were also 61,901 births and 32,029 deaths registered.

While 81 adoptions and 223 stillbirths were registered during the year.

The number of new entries in the Gender Recognition Register in 2018 was 75 - two of these related to people who were under 18 years of age.