Irish families and marriages are breaking down, according to a new report by the Iona Institute. The analysis of Census 2006 statistics, which includes age and region details and color-coded maps, is the first of its kind to be published.

According to the study, divorce in Ireland has increased 500 percent since 1986, with nearly 200,000 adults having suffered from a broken marriage. The number of lone-parent families jumped 80 percent to 190,000 during the same period, and the number of children living without married parents has doubled. Today, more than one in four children live in a home without a marriage.

“This is approaching British and American rates,” the report said.

Cohabitation in Ireland has risen 400 percent in the past decade. It is the fastest-growing living arrangement in the nation. In the last four years alone, the rate jumped 56 percent, now standing at 121,763 couples. There are only 2.77 million Irish between the ages of 15 and 64.

Marriage breakdowns occur the most among those ages 40 to 60. Individuals 40 to 44 have a breakdown rate of 16.1 percent. Those 45 to 49 and 50 to 54 have breakdown rates of over 18 percent.

Many Irish are also delaying getting married. In 2006, only 18.5 percent of individuals in the 25-to-29 age bracket were married, down from 56 percent in 1986.

The analysis found cities to have the most family-unfriendly environments.

“This report confirms that marriage breakdown is becoming a serious problem in Ireland,” Professor Patricia Casey, a Dublin psychiatrist, said. “Although the national breakdown rate is 13 percent, this is not evenly distributed and affects cities and socially deprived areas in particular, much more heavily than the norm.”

Herbert W. Armstrong analyzed the vulnerable state of marriage over 20 years ago, asking if marriage itself was being phased out of society. In his booklet on the subject, he wrote, “But marriages are not only breaking down all around us; the very usefulness and desirability of the custom is being seriously questioned!”

Ireland’s statistics, taken with Britain and America’s, bear this forecast out. We are witnessing unprecedented, open warfare on the institution of marriage, a concerted attempt to redefine it out of existence. To understand why Mr. Armstrong’s analysis on the outmoding of marriage has proved to be prescient and, most importantly, the deep reasons for which this extraordinary institution exists in the first place, read Why Marriage! Soon Obsolete?