New survey to explore churchgoing in Ireland

27/03/2024

The Mater Dei Centre for Catholic Education at DCU’s Institute of Education is conducting a new all-island survey that explores churchgoing in Ireland – asking what it means to attendees today.

The survey, Church-24, is part of an empirical study initiated at York St. John University on churchgoers in England, Scotland and Wales. The Irish study is led by Dr. Bernadette Sweetman, post-doctoral researcher at the Centre.

This is the third collaboration for the team who previously researched the impact of COVID-19 on clergy and laypeople across the UK and the Republic of Ireland. This new research aims to:

To listen to churchgoers on a range of long-standing questions such as role of women in the church, married priests, divorce, personal belief and belonging to a faith community and religion in schools
To explore new issues that face churchgoers including climate change, artificial intelligence and assisted dying.
To investigate what has happened to churchgoers and faith communities since Covid-19 lockdowns ended

Speaking about the survey, Dr. Sweetman said:

“At the Centre, we are keen to represent the viewpoints of the Irish people authentically in matters of faith and education. To do this, we depend on obtaining as wide a variety of responses as possible to our research.

This survey is particularly special as it addresses topical issues such as assisted dying, climate change, Artificial Intelligence as well as the more general inquiries on churchgoing practice.

The survey is for clergy, lay ministers, and lay people of any denomination or none, and you don’t have to be a regular churchgoer to take part.”

The Church-24 survey can be accessed here

More details can be found on the Church-24 project page on the York St. John University website.