Analysis of Irish Mortality Using Public Data Sources 2014-2020

Analysis of Irish
Mortality Using
Public Data Sources
2014-2020
An analysis of patterns and trends in
mortality in Ireland using public death notice
information
Alan McSweeney
February 2021
http://ie.linkedin.com/in/alanmcsweeney

Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................4
Notes on RIP.ie Web Site Data ............................................................................................................................4
Mortality Analysis................................................................................................................................................7
Deaths By Day of the Week .............................................................................................................................7
Daily Deaths....................................................................................................................................................7
Deaths By Week ..............................................................................................................................................9
Deaths by Month ...........................................................................................................................................11
Deaths by Quarter..........................................................................................................................................12
Deaths by County ..........................................................................................................................................13
Names............................................................................................................................................................22
Deaths by Surnames...................................................................................................................................22
Deaths by First Names...............................................................................................................................23
Deaths of Clergy and Members of Religious Orders..........................................................................................26

Analysis of Irish Mortality Using Public Data Sources 2014-2020
Page 3
List of Figures
Figure 1 – Differences Between CSO and RIP.ie Mortality Data............................................................................5
Figure 2 – Deaths by Day of Week 2014 to 2020....................................................................................................7
Figure 3 – Daily Number of Deaths by Day Number From 2014 to 2020 ...............................................................8
Figure 4 – Daily Number of Deaths Aligned to Weekday From 2014 to 2020 .........................................................8
Figure 5 – Range of Deaths for 2014 to 2019 Overlaid With Deaths for 2020..........................................................9
Figure 6 – Deaths by Week 2014 to 2020.............................................................................................................10
Figure 7 – Deaths by Month 2014 to 2020 ...........................................................................................................12
Figure 8 – Deaths by Quarter 2014 to 2020 .........................................................................................................12
Figure 9 – Proportion of County Populations That Died 2014 to 2020..................................................................14
Figure 10 – Difference in County Death Rate in 2020 from the Average of 2014-2019...........................................15
Figure 11 – County Death Rates 2014.................................................................................................................18
Figure 18 – Proportions of the Top 100 Surnames in Death Notices 2014 to 2020 .................................................22
Figure 19 – Proportions of the Top 100 First Names in Death Notices 2014 to 2020 .............................................23
Figure 20 – Numbers of Deaths by Religious Title in Ireland 2014 to 2020...........................................................28
Figure 21 – Numbers of Deaths by Religious Title for all Locations 2014 to 2020 .................................................29

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Introduction
This document describes the use of published death notices on the web site www.rip.ie as a substitute to officially
published mortality statistics.
Death notice information is available immediately and contains information at a greater level of detail than
published statistics. There is a substantial lag in officially published mortality data.
Notes on RIP.ie Web Site Data
This analysis uses data from RIP.ie for the years 2014 to 2020.
RIP.ie is a web site that contains death notices that are also published in newspapers. The information available on
a death on RIP.ie includes:
• Name of deceased
• Six-digit reference
• Date the death notice was published
• Date of death
• County of the deceased
• Town of the deceased (this is frequently blank)
• Text of death notice
The information must be scraped from the web pages containing death notices displayed by the site. This extracted
information has then to be parsed to make it usable.
The data is informal. RIP.ie is the only publicly available source of detailed current death data in Ireland.
However, the information needs to be filtered to make it usable. This processing is not exact and so the exclusion of
deaths that have occurred outside Ireland may be problematic.
There information is not present in the RIP.ie data that would be useful such as age at death and sex. Sex could be
inferred from the name of deceased and the use of pronouns in the text of the notice.
This results in inevitable differences between the officially published data and that extracted from RIP.ie. The
RIP.ie data has a number of advantages over the officially published data: it is available immediately and contains
a much greater level of granularity.
The following schematic illustrates the key differences between the CSO and RIP.ie datasets.

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Figure 1 – Differences Between CSO and RIP.ie Mortality Data
The CSO data is taken from deaths registered in Ireland. This includes anyone who died in Ireland. The reporting
of deaths is mandatory so the data can be assumed to be very accurate. A small number of deaths may occur that
may not be registered but this is likely to be very small.
The use of RIP.ie is not mandatory for deaths. The RIP.ie data has a number of issues including:
• There are multiple occurrences of the same notice with slightly different values for County and Town.
• There are duplicate notices for the same death with different reference numbers.
• There are notices for deaths that occur in Northern Ireland.
• There are notices for deaths of Irish people that occurred outside Ireland other than Northern Ireland. These
notices can apply to deaths of Irish people who died while outside Ireland temporarily or Irish people who are
resident outside Ireland long-term.
• Death notices may not be published for foreign nationals who have died in Ireland, including both visitors,
tourists and temporary workers but whose deaths will appear in the CSO data.
• Death notices are frequently not published for the deaths of very young children but whose deaths will appear
in the CSO data.
• Some deaths will not have a death notice but these deaths will appear in the CSO data.
• Deaths for which a notice is published in one year may have occurred in a prior year. In some cases, the gap
can be several years.
• There are data errors. For example, the date of death in some cases is after the date of publication of the death
notice. In this analysis death notices were extracted up to the end of January 2021 to cater for this. There may
be deaths that occurred in 2020 that were not published until after that date.
• Some death notices have a date published value but no date of death value. In these cases, I have assumed
that the date is death is the date of publication.

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• A small number of notices refer to more than one death.
The following table summarises the results of the processing of the RIP.ie data that was performed to address these
issues.
Year RIP.ie Death
Notices Published
Calculated
Individual Deaths
Reduction
2014 34,564 28,351 6,213
2015 37,168 29,385 7,783
2016 39,473 30,499 8,974
2017 40,239 30,313 9,926
2018 42,003 31,158 10,845
2019 42,459 31,163 11,296
2020 44,074 32,090 11,984
Total 279,980 212,959 67,021
The following table summarises the differences between the RIP.ie and CSO VSQ04 time series1 for the numbers of
deaths in the four quarters for the years 2014 and 2020 and overall for each year. At the time this analysis was
generated (Feb 2021), the CSO data is only available up to 2020Q2.
Year 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Quarter 1
CSO 8,110 8,604 8,609 9,067 9,278 8,618 8,674
RIP.ie 7,854 8,249 8,462 8,436 9,227 8,257 8,459
Difference 256 355 147 631 51 361 215
Difference % 3.26% 4.30% 1.74% 7.48% 0.55% 4.37% 2.54%
Quarter 2
CSO 7,197 7,565 7,697 7,315 7,592 7,519 8,582
RIP.ie 6,667 7,019 7,129 6,959 7,305 7,558 8,477
Difference 530 546 568 356 287 -39 105
Difference % 7.95% 7.78% 7.97% 5.12% 3.93% -0.52% 1.24%
Quarter 3
CSO 7,001 6,851 7,129 6,987 7,143 7,358
RIP.ie 6,581 6,689 6,921 6,877 6,976 6,959 7,060
Difference 420 162 208 110 167 399
Difference % 6.38% 2.42% 3.01% 1.60% 2.39% 5.73%
Quarter 4
CSO 6,787 6,932 6,955 7,115 7,103 7,639
RIP.ie 7,249 7,428 7,987 8,041 7,650 8,389 8,094
Difference -462 -496 -1,032 -926 -547 -750
Difference % -6.37% -6.68% -12.92% -11.52% -7.15% -8.94%
Annual
CSO 29,095 29,952 30,390 30,484 31,116 31,134
RIP.ie 28,351 29,385 30,499 30,313 31,158 31,163 32,090
Difference 744 567 -109 171 -42 -29
Difference % 2.62% 1.93% -0.36% 0.56% -0.13% -0.09%
Averages
Average CSO
Deaths Per Day
79.71 82.06 83.03 83.52 85.25 85.30
Average RIP.ie
Deaths Per Day
77.67 80.51 83.33 83.05 85.36 85.38 87.92
2016 and 2020 were leap years so for each of these years, there will be an additional day’s deaths added to the first
quarter and to the year total.
The two sets of numbers are generally quite close.
The implicit assumption here is that the CSO death statistics are completely accurate.
1 VSQ04 Total Births, Deaths and Marriages Registered https://data.cso.ie/table/VSQ04

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Mortality Analysis
Deaths By Day of the Week
The following chart shows the recorded number of deaths by day of week.
Figure 2 – Deaths by Day of Week 2014 to 2020
The recorded number of deaths is generally the same across all days of the week. In general, about one seventh of
the deaths occur on each of the days of the week. For some but not all years the proportion of deaths on Saturdays
and Sundays is slightly lower than on other days.
The day of the week is potentially important as each year starts on different weekdays.
Year Start Day
2014 Wed
2015 Thu
2016 Fri
2017 Sun
2018 Mon
2019 Tue
2020 Wed
Daily Deaths
The following chart shows the number of deaths per day. In this chart the days for each year are not aligned to
weekdays.

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Figure 3 – Daily Number of Deaths by Day Number From 2014 to 2020
The following charts shows the same daily number of deaths with the days for each year aligned to the same
weekday.
Figure 4 – Daily Number of Deaths Aligned to Weekday From 2014 to 2020
At a superficial level, there is no difference with the pattern of deaths when the series for each starts on the same
weekday or not.

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The increase is recorded deaths from around Thu 26 Mar 2020 to around Fri 1 May 2020 reflects the increased
number of deaths due to COVID-19.
Outside this interval the daily variation in number of deaths. The following chart shows the range of daily numbers
of death in the years 2014 to 2019 and the deaths for 2020.
Figure 5 – Range of Deaths for 2014 to 2019 Overlaid With Deaths for 2020
There are many reasons why the number of deaths varies throughout the year and between years, such as:
• Changes in mortality rates
• Change in the size of the population
• Changes in the age profile of the population
• Seasonal factors that vary both cyclically within and between years such as seasonal influenza and
temperature
Deaths By Week
The following chart shows the deaths by week. The values for the first and last weeks are lower than for other
weeks as these are generally partial weeks.

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Figure 6 – Deaths by Week 2014 to 2020
This illustrates the same excess deaths in weeks 13 to 19 of 2020. This excess is not apparent for the remainder of
2020.
The following table contains the data used to generate this chart.
Week 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Average
1 373 261 207 780 673 445 408 449.57
2 613 628 678 816 823 694 664 702.29
3 594 644 678 780 824 665 675 694.29
4 577 625 680 698 723 674 648 660.71
5 615 636 679 678 752 715 658 676.14
6 631 674 650 579 745 692 628 657.00
7 648 642 664 633 723 652 686 664.00
8 669 688 641 647 666 601 638 650.00
9 642 668 610 619 657 633 607 633.71
10 615 676 638 610 723 624 621 643.86
11 599 616 625 573 667 623 630 619.00
12 581 611 611 543 629 561 596 590.29
13 524 621 638 558 622 571 682 602.29
14 577 589 626 559 635 556 814 622.29
15 587 562 616 537 593 631 889 630.71
16 538 569 605 575 609 598 878 624.57
17 501 553 527 569 579 572 755 579.43
18 506 536 580 565 539 561 731 574.00
19 530 561 574 555 535 610 680 577.86
20 464 561 529 542 530 614 604 549.14
21 508 529 518 518 555 552 566 535.14
22 527 538 551 528 569 630 576 559.86
23 497 499 553 495 524 522 530 517.14

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Week 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Average
24 484 547 511 533 565 564 516 531.43
25 511 506 505 456 486 617 562 520.43
26 478 500 520 517 586 555 480 519.43
27 473 516 513 521 569 574 488 522.00
28 514 500 517 486 507 533 486 506.14
29 525 508 514 516 554 524 567 529.71
30 523 412 552 509 530 533 541 514.29
31 467 492 543 529 505 497 471 500.57
32 479 501 500 511 528 500 548 509.57
33 524 525 496 483 477 507 536 506.86
34 491 554 541 538 516 544 523 529.57
35 533 485 508 549 549 545 551 531.43
36 516 522 495 514 523 511 557 519.71
37 470 540 549 584 540 527 588 542.57
38 494 484 543 561 572 514 535 529.00
39 502 575 518 508 539 545 519 529.43
40 505 522 588 569 537 597 636 564.86
41 534 510 534 572 582 598 593 560.43
42 517 580 546 606 587 607 585 575.43
43 502 587 564 612 551 620 634 581.43
44 562 589 577 560 505 605 654 578.86
45 582 542 526 559 640 578 575 571.71
46 523 531 575 654 603 640 609 590.71
47 581 562 651 576 571 667 599 601.00
48 476 521 580 579 610 632 593 570.14
49 548 559 615 606 609 646 607 598.57
50 577 589 697 679 601 656 615 630.57
51 582 619 663 644 633 700 617 636.86
52 624 589 658 730 598 691 646 648.00
53 338 431 722 95 90 340 495 358.71
Total 28,351 29,385 30,499 30,313 31,158 31,163 32,090
Deaths by Month
The following chart shows the deaths by week from 2014 to 2020. The values for the first and last weeks will be
lower than for other weeks as these will generally be partial weeks.

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Figure 7 – Deaths by Month 2014 to 2020
Again, this shows excess deaths for April 2020. This does not occur consistently for the other months of 2020.
Deaths by Quarter
The following chart shows the deaths by month from 2014 to 2020.
Figure 8 – Deaths by Quarter 2014 to 2020
As before, this shows excess deaths for second quarter of 2020. This does not occur consistently for the other
quarters of 2020.

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Deaths by County
The following table shows the numbers of deaths by county from 2014 to 2020.
County 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Carlow 379 394 387 412 470 516 495
Cavan 531 551 554 573 671 637 753
Clare 861 899 913 815 1,013 944 899
Cork 3,351 3,460 3,734 3,647 3,957 3,976 4,012
Donegal 1,176 1,162 1,221 1,310 1,330 1,318 985
Dublin 6,813 7,061 6,853 7,378 8,394 8,406 8,536
Galway 1,560 1,520 1,638 1,576 1,659 1,715 1,622
Kerry 1,171 1,273 1,318 1,235 1,259 1,244 1,339
Kildare 743 775 833 789 850 876 994
Kilkenny 552 663 753 675 732 674 732
Laois 433 490 505 503 425 427 487
Leitrim 281 311 325 321 302 314 308
Limerick 1,490 1,441 1,521 1,461 1,387 1,364 1,448
Longford 286 313 330 303 297 310 307
Louth 716 795 740 811 793 866 900
Mayo 1,194 1,206 1,283 1,276 1,157 1,091 1,096
Meath 744 779 834 809 772 732 868
Monaghan 376 363 391 418 373 389 494
Offaly 451 505 515 486 464 473 522
Roscommon 535 597 600 523 481 465 544
Sligo 515 526 548 537 471 475 534
Tipperary 1,270 1,362 1,505 1,345 1,189 1,186 1,250
Waterford 785 761 856 782 702 743 753
Westmeath 595 573 610 596 437 438 540
Wexford 834 865 974 992 951 906 958
Wicklow 709 740 758 740 622 678 714
Total 28,351 29,385 30,499 30,313 31,158 31,163 32,090
The following chart shows the proportion of the population of counties that died from 2014 to 2020.

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Figure 9 – Proportion of County Populations That Died 2014 to 2020
The following charts shows the difference in the death rate by county for 2020 compared to the average of the
preceding six years.

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Figure 10 – Difference in County Death Rate in 2020 from the Average of 2014-2019
The proportion of population that died in 2020 is lower than the average for the preceding six years for the
following counties:
Clare
Donegal
Galway
Leitrim
Limerick
Longford
Mayo
Roscommon
Tipperary
Waterford
Westmeath
Wicklow

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These proportions are based on the following county population estimated from 2014 to 2020 produced by the
CSO2. These are estimates and may not be accurate. So any information based on these estimates may not be
accurate.
There are wide variations in the proportions of county populations that died from 2014 to 2020. Kildare and Meath
have consistently low proportions. Leitrim and Mayo have consistently high proportions.
County 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Carlow 55,156 55,430 57,040 57,628 58,284 59,023 59,535
Cavan 73,379 73,357 75,985 76,870 77,820 78,579 78,806
Clare 118,149 118,555 118,063 119,219 120,540 121,195 122,001
Cork 532,339 531,940 540,635 545,684 552,184 557,386 565,678
Donegal 160,672 160,624 158,615 160,462 162,445 164,029 164,504
Dublin 1,286,409 1,315,318 1,335,861 1,350,018 1,370,508 1,395,618 1,417,654
Galway 246,511 247,128 253,444 256,062 259,238 262,603 266,091
Kerry 147,117 147,008 144,348 145,696 147,431 148,821 151,035
Kildare 215,352 217,909 223,059 226,425 229,922 233,593 236,820
Kilkenny 96,497 96,975 98,672 99,688 100,824 102,102 102,988
Laois 82,832 83,207 85,011 86,096 87,345 88,349 88,078
Leitrim 32,084 32,075 32,143 32,517 32,919 33,240 33,336
Limerick 191,832 192,492 194,013 195,913 198,084 199,160 200,484
Longford 40,284 40,466 41,182 41,707 42,313 42,799 42,668
Louth 126,202 127,701 128,956 130,902 132,924 135,046 136,911
Mayo 130,236 130,561 129,320 130,656 132,276 133,994 135,773
Meath 189,869 192,124 196,259 199,221 202,297 205,527 208,366
Monaghan 61,038 61,019 61,792 62,512 63,284 63,901 64,086
Offaly 78,630 78,986 78,330 79,329 80,480 81,405 81,156
Roscommon 64,346 64,507 64,750 65,419 66,230 67,090 67,981
Sligo 64,841 64,821 64,767 65,521 66,331 66,978 67,172
Tipperary 161,791 161,791 161,791 161,791 161,791 161,791 161,791
Waterford 114,752 115,321 115,674 116,865 118,196 119,695 120,734
Westmeath 88,081 88,481 88,853 89,987 91,292 92,341 92,059
Wexford 147,100 147,829 149,785 151,328 153,051 154,991 156,337
Wicklow 139,944 141,606 142,625 144,777 147,013 149,360 151,424
Total 4,645,443 4,687,231 4,740,973 4,792,293 4,855,022 4,918,616 4,973,468
The proportions of the county populations that died from 2014 to 2020 are contained in the following table.
County 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Carlow 0.69% 0.71% 0.68% 0.71% 0.81% 0.87% 0.83%
Cavan 0.72% 0.75% 0.73% 0.75% 0.86% 0.81% 0.96%
Clare 0.73% 0.76% 0.77% 0.68% 0.84% 0.78% 0.74%
Cork 0.63% 0.65% 0.69% 0.67% 0.72% 0.71% 0.71%
Donegal 0.73% 0.72% 0.77% 0.82% 0.82% 0.80% 0.60%
Dublin 0.53% 0.54% 0.51% 0.55% 0.61% 0.60% 0.60%
Galway 0.63% 0.62% 0.65% 0.62% 0.64% 0.65% 0.61%
Kerry 0.80% 0.87% 0.91% 0.85% 0.85% 0.84% 0.89%
Kildare 0.35% 0.36% 0.37% 0.35% 0.37% 0.38% 0.42%
2 DHA06 Population: Denominator Data https://data.cso.ie/table/DHA06

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County 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Kilkenny 0.57% 0.68% 0.76% 0.68% 0.73% 0.66% 0.71%
Laois 0.52% 0.59% 0.59% 0.58% 0.49% 0.48% 0.55%
Leitrim 0.88% 0.97% 1.01% 0.99% 0.92% 0.94% 0.92%
Limerick 0.78% 0.75% 0.78% 0.75% 0.70% 0.68% 0.72%
Longford 0.71% 0.77% 0.80% 0.73% 0.70% 0.72% 0.72%
Louth 0.57% 0.62% 0.57% 0.62% 0.60% 0.64% 0.66%
Mayo 0.92% 0.92% 0.99% 0.98% 0.87% 0.81% 0.81%
Meath 0.39% 0.41% 0.42% 0.41% 0.38% 0.36% 0.42%
Monaghan 0.62% 0.59% 0.63% 0.67% 0.59% 0.61% 0.77%
Offaly 0.57% 0.64% 0.66% 0.61% 0.58% 0.58% 0.64%
Roscommon 0.83% 0.93% 0.93% 0.80% 0.73% 0.69% 0.80%
Sligo 0.79% 0.81% 0.85% 0.82% 0.71% 0.71% 0.79%
Tipperary 0.78% 0.84% 0.93% 0.83% 0.73% 0.73% 0.77%
Waterford 0.68% 0.66% 0.74% 0.67% 0.59% 0.62% 0.62%
Westmeath 0.68% 0.65% 0.69% 0.66% 0.48% 0.47% 0.59%
Wexford 0.57% 0.59% 0.65% 0.66% 0.62% 0.58% 0.61%
Wicklow 0.51% 0.52% 0.53% 0.51% 0.42% 0.45% 0.47%
The proportions of county populations that die are related to the age profile of the county and the proportions in
older age groups3. The following table shows the proportions of county populations aged 85 and older compared
with proportions of county populations that died in 2020.
The values for the counties Kildare and Meath (lowest county death rates) and May and Leitrim (highest county
death rates) in 2020 are highlighted.
County in
Descending Age
Order
85 Years and
Over
Age Weighting
Rank
Age Weighting
Rank
County in
Descending
Proportion of
Population Died
Proportion of
Population Died
Kildare 1.06% 1 2 Meath 0.4166%
Laois 1.17% 2 4 Kildare 0.4197%
Meath 1.22% 3 1 Wicklow 0.4715%
Westmeath 1.36% 4 5 Laois 0.5529%
Offaly 1.45% 5 11 Westmeath 0.5866%
Louth 1.46% 6 12 Donegal 0.5988%
Wicklow 1.47% 7 3 Dublin 0.6021%
Longford 1.49% 8 15 Galway 0.6096%
Dublin 1.56% 9 7 Wexford 0.6128%
Carlow 1.59% 10 23 Waterford 0.6237%
Cork 1.64% 11 13 Offaly 0.6432%
Wexford 1.64% 12 9 Louth 0.6574%
Limerick 1.65% 13 16 Cork 0.7092%
Waterford 1.70% 14 10 Kilkenny 0.7108%
Monaghan 1.76% 15 18 Longford 0.7195%
Cavan 1.77% 16 26 Limerick 0.7223%
Galway 1.78% 17 8 Clare 0.7369%
Donegal 1.85% 18 6 Monaghan 0.7708%
3 This does not take into account the slight regional variations in life expectancy that exist in Ireland. See Table 4, Life
expectancy by sex, age, NUTS3 region and year of Irish Life Tables 2015-2017
https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/ilt/irishlifetablesno172015-2017/.

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Clare 1.86% 19 17 Tipperary 0.7726%
Kilkenny 1.86% 20 14 Sligo 0.7950%
Kerry 1.93% 21 24 Roscommon 0.8002%
Tipperary 2.01% 22 19 Mayo 0.8072%
Sligo 2.02% 23 20 Carlow 0.8314%
Mayo 2.23% 24 22 Kerry 0.8865%
Leitrim 2.40% 25 25 Leitrim 0.9239%
Roscommon 2.46% 26 21 Cavan 0.9555%
The following charts show the proportions of the county populations that died in the years 2014 to 2020.
Figure 11 – County Death Rates 2014

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Names
This section looks at the first and last names contained in the death notices.
Deaths by Surnames
The following diagram illustrates the proportions of the top 100 surnames contained in the death notices from 2014
to 2020.
Figure 18 – Proportions of the Top 100 Surnames in Death Notices 2014 to 2020
The information in this chart is contained in the following table.
Murphy 1.71% Gallagher 0.42% Kenny 0.31% Buckley 0.25% Lyons 0.20%
Kelly 1.32% Smith 0.41% Moore 0.31% Browne 0.25% Moloney 0.20%
Byrne 1.08% Fitzgerald 0.40% Keane 0.31% Ward 0.25% Cunningham 0.20%
O'Brien 1.06% Carroll 0.39% Brady 0.30% Sweeney 0.25% Sheehan 0.19%
Walsh 1.05% Flynn 0.38% Reilly 0.30% Maguire 0.24% Higgins 0.19%
Ryan 1.01% Power 0.38% Duffy 0.30% Smyth 0.24% Flanagan 0.19%
O'Sullivan 0.92% O'Connell 0.38% Moran 0.29% Butler 0.23% Barrett 0.19%
O'Connor 0.91% Kavanagh 0.38% Hayes 0.29% McDonnell 0.23% Curran 0.19%
Doyle 0.72% Farrell 0.37% Barry 0.29% McCormack 0.23% Cahill 0.19%
McCarthy 0.66% Collins 0.36% Roche 0.28% Griffin 0.22% McLoughlin 0.19%
O'Neill 0.60% Connolly 0.36% O'Keeffe 0.28% Cronin 0.22% McDonagh 0.19%
Lynch 0.57% Quinn 0.35% Fitzpatrick 0.27% Egan 0.22% Mooney 0.19%
Dunne 0.50% Clarke 0.34% Foley 0.27% Delaney 0.22% O'Rourke 0.18%
Murray 0.50% O'Donnell 0.34% Casey 0.27% Hogan 0.22% Crowley 0.18%
Brennan 0.48% O'Leary 0.33% O'Mahony 0.27% Hughes 0.21% O'Driscoll 0.18%
Burke 0.48% Whelan 0.33% Martin 0.26% O'Donoghue 0.21% McDermott 0.18%
Daly 0.45% McGrath 0.33% O'Callaghan 0.26% Hickey 0.21% Molloy 0.18%
O'Reilly 0.44% Healy 0.32% McMahon 0.26% White 0.21% O'Toole 0.18%

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Nolan 0.44% Doherty 0.32% Maher 0.26% Cullen 0.21% King 0.18%
Kennedy 0.43% O'Shea 0.32% O'Donovan 0.25% Keogh 0.21% Corcoran 0.17%
These 100 surnames account for 36.43% of all deaths.
This illustrates an historical cultural homogeneity and the cultural lag that is to be expected from the generally
older age cohorts that dominate the number of deaths.
Deaths by First Names
The following diagram illustrates the proportions of the top 100 first names contained in the death notices from
2014 to 2020.
Figure 19 – Proportions of the Top 100 First Names in Death Notices 2014 to 2020
The information in this chart is contained in the following table.
Mary 5.82% Peter 0.85% Seamus 0.48% Anna 0.32% Susan 0.19%
John 5.15% Teresa 0.80% Ellen 0.47% Nancy 0.31% Hugh 0.19%
Patrick 4.58% Martin 0.78% Gerard 0.47% Alice 0.31% Eamonn 0.19%
Michael 3.66% Patricia 0.78% Josephine 0.46% Stephen 0.30% Geraldine 0.19%
Margaret 2.99% Joan 0.73% Carmel 0.45% Christina 0.30% Agnes 0.19%
Thomas 2.88% Edward 0.73% Rita 0.44% Bernard 0.30% Nuala 0.19%
James 2.51% Marie 0.70% Brian 0.44% Vincent 0.28% Andrew 0.18%
Kathleen 2.12% Nora 0.68% Helen 0.42% Donal 0.28% Eamon 0.18%
Elizabeth 1.52% Noel 0.64% Christopher 0.41% Gerry 0.27% Una 0.18%
Anne 1.47% Sheila 0.63% Robert 0.40% May 0.27% Eugene 0.18%
Joseph 1.46% David 0.62% Bernadette 0.38% Brigid 0.27% Desmond 0.18%
Eileen 1.30% Denis 0.58% Philomena 0.38% Phyllis 0.26% Hannah 0.18%

Page 24
William 1.28% Brendan 0.55% Jimmy 0.36% Philip 0.26% Julia 0.18%
Catherine 1.19% Bridie 0.54% Breda 0.36% Noreen 0.25% Charles 0.18%
Bridget 1.13% Maura 0.54% George 0.36% Maurice 0.22% Monica 0.18%
Sean 1.07% Daniel 0.53% Rose 0.35% Timothy 0.22% Evelyn 0.17%
Ann 0.97% Paul 0.52% Frances 0.34% Christy 0.21% Oliver 0.17%
Anthony 0.95% Kevin 0.49% Angela 0.34% Dermot 0.21% Jeremiah 0.17%
Maureen 0.95% Richard 0.49% Sarah 0.32% Theresa 0.21% Laurence 0.17%
Francis 0.87% Liam 0.49% Pauline 0.32% Matthew 0.20% Veronica 0.17%
These 100 first names account for 73.38% of all deaths.
As before, this illustrates a cultural homogeneity that is to be expected from the generally older age cohorts that
dominate deaths. These first names can be compared with the current top baby names4. The top male name John
represented in death notices is currently at position 26. The top female name Mary is currently at position 82.
Boys' Name Rank in 2020 Rank In Death
Notices
Girls' Names Rank in 2020 Rank In Death
Notices
Jack 1 Not present Grace 1 233
James 2 7 Fiadh 2 Not present
Noah 3 1664 Emily 3 192
Daniel 4 36 Sophie 4 618
Conor 5 199 Ava 5 1232
Finn 6 921 Amelia 6 724
Liam 7 40 Ella 7 453
Fionn 8 883 Hannah 7 92
Harry 9 104 Lucy 9 196
Charlie 10 111 Mia 10 1232
Cillian 11 803 Olivia 11 402
Adam 12 392 Lily 12 145
Darragh 12 463 Ellie 13 420
Luke 14 224 Anna 14 61
Rian 15 1115 Emma 14 343
Oisin 16 687 Eabha 16 Not present
Michael 17 4 Chloe 17 803
Tadhg 18 430 Sophia 18 1034
Thomas 19 6 Molly 19 181
Sean 20 16 Saoirse 20 1232
Alex 21 364 Sadie 21 170
Patrick 22 3 Evie 22 2229
Jamie 23 440 Kate 23 215
Cian 24 564 Aoife 24 468
Oliver 25 97 Freya 24 Not present
John 26 2 Isla 26 2229
Bobby 27 338 Caoimhe 27 1115
Dylan 28 618 Holly 28 1115
Leo 28 147 Robyn 29 1115
Ryan 30 587 Katie 30 227
Oscar 31 1034 Sarah 30 59
Ben 32 329 Roisin 32 334
4 Irish Babies' Names 2020 https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-
ibn/irishbabiesnames2020/babiesnames2020tables/

Page 25
Notices
Notices
David 33 31 Alice 33 63
Mason 34 2229 Ruby 34 541
Theo 34 850 Sofia 35 Not present
Tommy 36 Not present Cara 36 1034
Jacob 37 1388 Ada 37 587
Callum 38 850 Eva 37 260
Matthew 39 80 Isabelle 39 1388
Alexander 40 440 Sadhbh 39 1664
Alfie 41 453 Bonnie 41 1388
Max 42 921 Erin 41 1034
Tom 43 Not present Willow 43 Not present
Ollie 44 541 Zoe 44 850
Aaron 45 420 Millie 45 747
Jake 46 772 Clodagh 46 641
Donnacha 47 1664 Leah 46 772
Ethan 47 1115 Ciara 48 440
Evan 49 664 Charlotte 49 353
Benjamin 50 687 Emilia 50 1664
Senan 51 554 Isabella 50 488
William 51 13 Rosie 52 317
Sam 53 343 Annie 53 Not present
Shay 53 413 Eve 54 641
Logan 55 2229 Maya 54 Not present
Joshua 56 921 Layla 56 Not present
Nathan 57 709 Maisie 57 227
Kai 58 Not present Sienna 57 2229
Archie 59 803 Jessica 59 747
Joseph 59 11 Ailbhe 60 1034
Jayden 61 1664 Clara 60 724
Luca 61 1664 Lauren 62 921
Billy 63 101 Harper 63 Not present
Arthur 64 152 Abigail 64 972
Danny 65 141 Faye 65 1664
Theodore 66 1388 Amber 66 2229
Samuel 67 296 Aoibhin 67 2229
Cathal 68 275 Mila 67 2229
Lucas 68 2229 Maria 69 138
Aidan 70 119 Zara 70 1388
Freddie 71 Not present Elizabeth 71 9
Rory 72 329 Rose 72 56
Robert 73 50 Aria 73 2229
Eoin 74 319 Alannah 74 2229
Frankie 75 Not present Bella 74 664
Leon 75 772 Ivy 74 772
Muhammad 77 Not present Daisy 77 687
Ruairi 77 1115 Julia 77 92
Eoghan 79 664 Meabh 77 1388
George 80 54 Amy 80 440
Isaac 81 921 Lara 80 2229
Louis 81 272 Mary 82 1

Page 26
Notices
Notices
Odhran 81 2229 Nina 83 641
Sonny 81 453 Penny 83 850
Kyle 85 1034 Mollie 85 386
Rian 86 1115 Luna 86 Not present
Shane 87 203 Niamh 86 402
Henry 88 116 Evelyn 88 96
Sean 88 16 Laura 88 218
Edward 90 26 Abbie 90 747
Martin 90 23 Cora 90 307
Mark 92 107 Rebecca 92 380
Andrew 93 87 Fiadh 93 Not present
Anthony 93 18 Heidi 93 1388
Kayden 93 Not present Croia 95 Not present
Odhran 93 2229 Elsie 95 269
Christopher 97 49 Hazel 95 346
Sebastian 97 1388 Pippa 95 2229
Hugo 99 618 Maeve 99 159
Joey 99 573 Paige 99 1664
The use of the name Jack as a proper name rather than as a diminutive for John is a relatively new phenomenon.
Deaths of Clergy and Members of Religious Orders
One additional possible insight that can be gained from an analysis of the mortality information from RIP.ie
relates to the deaths of clergy and members of Catholic religious orders.
The age profile of this population cohort is much older than the general population5.
These numbers can be simply obtained by analysing the name text strings included in death notices for one of the
following words:
5 Archdiocese of Dublin Projection of Position in 2030 https://www.dublindiocese.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Results-
meeting-unprotected.pdf September 2015.There are 386 priests in the Dublin Archdiocese aged under 75 and 33 aged from 75 to
80.The expected number of new joiners to the priesthood up to 2030 is 16.
DIOCESAN PRIEST AGE PROFILE 2013 https://www.catholicbishops.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2013-age-profile-
quick-report-revised-May-2014.pdf contains the following number and age profile of priests in all dioceses, including Northern
Ireland that are not included in this analysis. These numbers do not include retired priests.
Age Group Numbers of
Priests in All
Dioceses 2013
Proportion General
Population
Proportion 2013
25-34 32 1.55% 15.45%
35-44 214 10.35% 15.34%
45-54 480 23.22% 12.85%
55-64 519 25.11% 10.28%
65-74 561 27.14% 7.12%
75-84 231 11.18% 3.90%
85 + 30 1.45% 1.32%
Total 2,067
The General Population Proportion is derived from PEA07 - Estimated Population (Persons in April)
https://data.cso.ie/table/PEA07.

Page 27
"SR."
"SR "
"SISTER "
"MOTHER "
"FR "
"FR."
"FATHER"
"BR "
"BR."
"BROTHER"
"REV "
"REV."
"REVD "
"REVD."
"REVEREND"
"CANON "
"MONSIGNOR "
"MGR "
"MGR."
"BISHOP "
"CARDINAL "
The words “CANON “ and “BROTHER” can occur in surnames and must be filtered. The word “MOTHER “ can
occur in surnames and as a term of endearment and must also be filtered.
The title “CANON” and “REVEREND” can occur in both Catholic and Protestant religions. Filtering this is
subjective.
More than one of these titles can occur in the same notice such as: “Very Rev. Fr.” and “Very Reverend Canon”.
The titles are not be double counted. Where a deceased has more than one title, the first one is used.
The numbers of deaths in the various categories of religious titles from 2014 to 2020 are shown in the following
table.
Religions Title
(and its
Variants)
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Total
Sister 261 278 295 276 287 250 287 1,934
Father 118 117 116 122 111 128 163 875
Brother 28 31 25 30 25 21 21 181
Reverend 37 36 29 30 26 26 20 204
Canon 6 4 3 1 3 12 17 46
Monsignor 4 2 6 7 3 5 10 37
Bishop 3 4 3 1 4 4 3 22
Cardinal 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Total 457 472 477 468 459 446 521 3,300
These numbers include active and retired clergy and members of religious orders. In the Catholic Church, priests
retire on the 30th of June following their 75th birthday. From age 66 to 75, priests work at a reduced level.

Page 28
Figure 20 – Numbers of Deaths by Religious Title in Ireland 2014 to 2020
This shows a decline in the numbers of Catholic religious. There is a noticeable increase in the number of deaths of
priests (title of Father) in 2020. This probably relates to increased deaths of retired priests and mirrors the increase
in nursing home deaths due to COVID 19.
The reduction in the numbers of religious orders reflects the diminishing influence and position of Catholic Church
in Irish society. There is limited information available on the numbers of religious6. The following table summarises
information on the numbers of Clergy from the 2016 census.
2011 2016
Total Number At Work 3,536 3,377
Average Age At Work 57.2 58.5
While this analysis is concerned with deaths in Ireland, a characteristic of Irish members of religious order is that
they frequently move outside Ireland. When the analysis is extended to include these categories that were
previously excluded, the numbers of deaths in the various sets of religious titles from 2014 to 2020 are shown in the
following table.
Religions Title
(and its
Variants)
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 Total
Sister 272 296 309 293 305 268 313 2,056
Father 134 144 127 138 137 150 180 1,010
Brother 31 31 28 32 29 22 21 194
Reverend 37 42 26 33 28 27 31 224
Canon 7 6 5 5 6 16 9 54
Monsignor 6 3 11 9 6 8 13 56
Bishop 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 12
Cardinal 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Total 488 524 508 512 513 493 569 3,607
6 EB068 - Average Age of Population Aged 15 Years and Over At Work 2011 to 2016 https://data.cso.ie/table/EB068
EZ054 - Population Aged 15 Years and Over At Work 2011 to 2016 https://data.cso.ie/table/EZ054

Page 29
This shows an additional 10% of deaths of clergy and members of religious orders over the numbers for Ireland
only.
Figure 21 – Numbers of Deaths by Religious Title for all Locations 2014 to 2020

Page 30
For more information, please contact:
http://ie.linkedin.com/in/alanmcsweeney

Analysis of Irish Mortality Using Public Data Sources 2014-2020

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Analysis of Irish Mortality Using Public Data Sources 2014-2020