The number of Catholic baptisms taking place across Ireland has fallen by almost 30% over the past decade, with declining birth rates and the growth of religious non-affiliation identified as the main reasons. A new briefing note from The Iona Institute, based on figures supplied by almost every Catholic diocese in Ireland, found that baptisms were down 29.6% compared with a decade earlier.
The institute estimates that around 60% of that fall can be attributed to the decline in births, with the remainder largely linked to secularization. Births across the island dropped by 18.8% over the same period, including a 17.9% decline in the Republic of Ireland and a 21.3% fall in Northern Ireland. Figures published in the report show that Dublin recorded one of the steepest declines, with baptisms falling from 15,759 in 2015 to 9,465 in 2025, a drop of 39.9%.
Meath saw an even slightly larger proportional fall of 40.8%, while Down and Connor, which includes Belfast, recorded a 37.9% decline. By contrast, Achonry saw baptisms fall by just 3.2%, while Elphin recorded a small increase of 0.9%. Kerry’s decline stood at 22.3%. The Iona Institute said the figures should not be interpreted as evidence of secularization alone, arguing that the shrinking number of children being born has had an even greater effect.
Census figures cited in the briefing also show a marked shift in the religious identity of young children in the Republic. Over three-quarters (78.3%) of children aged 0 to 4 years old in 2016 were recorded as Roman Catholic. By 2022, that had fallen to 65.4%. Over the same period, the proportion recorded as having no religion rose from 9.2% to 15.6%. The total number of children under 5 also fell by more than 37,000 between the two censuses. Despite those changes, the institute