EUGENE DALY continues his series on various aspects of Irish folklore and customs
DURING THE 19th century and into the twentieth, the traditional time for marrying, in rural Ireland, was Shrovetide.
Shrovetide is the period between Christmas and Lent, that is between Nollaig na mBan (The Women’s Christmas or Epiphany) to Máirt na hInide (Shrove Tuesday). From January 6th on the matchmakers were busy and many unions were planned and eagerly awaited, not only by the couple due to be wed but also by the whole district which would share in the merrymaking, feasting and drinking.
It was taken for granted that those who wished to marry did so at this time. Every parish church had many weddings during Shrove, especially on Shrove Tuesday, when often there were multiple weddings on that day.
Going through the parish records of Aughadown parish, near Skibbereen in West Cork, I counted eleven weddings on one Shrove Tuesday early in the twentieth century. There was a prohibition of matrimony during Lent which seems to be the main cause for marrying before Lent.
In the south west of Ireland, the bridal party left the house of the bride’s parents in horse traps, the bride and her parents in the first vehicle followed by relatives of the bride and groom, the groom joining in at some point along the way and taking up position at the end of the cavalcade. On the return journey the bride and groom travelled together in the first vehicle with the bridesmaid and groomsman. The whole wedding party returned to the house of the bride’s parents, where feasting, music, singing and dancing continued for most of the night.
BEING UNMARRIED was considered a neglect of social duty in this era. The position of the unmarried was emphasised at Shrovetide by the good fortune or courage of their friends or relations who were marrying.
In rural Ireland the unmarried person never had the same status as those who were married. An unmarried man of fifty was still a ‘boy’, while his married nephew of twenty-five was a man; the young wife of twenty had the full status of a matron while a spinster of forty-five was practically a nobody.
Before the Great Famine of the 1840s the father of a family often divided his land between his sons, resulting in farms becoming smaller and smaller with a consequent rapid increase of population.
Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own