Over a third of Irish births in second quarter 2012 are outside marriage or civil partnership

Love in the Time of Liberation! Nowadays people can choose to live as they please without constraints of rituals they neither want nor need. All rituals and ceremonies should test themselves for what value they bring to society and the people involved. Is marriage of much significant value at all to either? Given the destructive force of the church why would anyone want to get married there? Given the little benefits of even a civil ceremony why would a couple bother? So there is time to pause and reflect what if any value there may be to the children involved in terms of legal stature and rights. What a splendid shift to love as the basis for families instead of dogma and rituals.

Poor journalism, O'Shea. You totally omitted one of the most salient facts to emerge. Namely: One child in four born in Ireland is born to a foreign mother (it was the same last year). Given the continued influx of foreigners of child-bearing age, and the exodus of young Irish men and women, this is a harbinger of the ethnic replacement predicted for Ireland within the next two or three decades. That's worth commenting on, especially on an Irish American web site--it's really weird that you didn't notice it.

poor little bashtards.