Much of what is sold today as ‘Irish wedding tradition’ is real, some of it is borrowed, and a little of it was invented by the wedding trade in the last thirty years. Below, each custom is labelled: Custom for what people did, Belief for what they believed, Legend for a story told about a thing, History for what the record shows. Where we could not find a source, we say so.
Custom: what people did. Belief: what people believed (not a claim of fact). Legend: a story told about a thing, with our verdict. History: what the record shows. The 1930s accounts are from the Schools' Collection; each summary covers only the page at the link.
“Marriage Customs” ↗ · “Wedding customs” ↗ · “Strawboys” ↗ · “Chalk Sunday” ↗ · “Matchmaking” ↗
Galway, where Claddagh rings have been made continuously since at least 1700. The clasped-hands design belongs to the much older European family of fede rings. The story that Richard Joyce invented it while enslaved in Algiers is a legend; Joyce was real and made some of the earliest surviving examples.
By the commonly given rule: right hand, heart pointing out, single; pointing in, in a relationship; left ring finger, pointing out, engaged; pointing in, married. The rule is recent and oral, and local versions vary.
Not on the evidence we have found. Handfasting is an English and Scots word and practice, and the ribbon ceremony sold today comes from neopagan weddings from the late 1960s. Calling it pre-Christian or ancient Irish is not supported.
Young men, usually uninvited, who came to the wedding at night disguised in straw hats, masks and bands of straw. They danced with the bride, were given drink and left. The 1930s Schools' Collection records them across Mayo, Galway and Sligo.
The first Sunday of Lent. Unmarried people who had not married at Shrovetide were chalked on the back on the way out of Mass, a sign they were on the shelf for another year. It is recorded in the 1930s in Mayo and Galway.
Shrovetide, the days before Lent, was the main wedding season in rural Ireland in the accounts written down in the 1930s, with Shrove Tuesday itself a favourite day. Lent began on Ash Wednesday.
A matchmaking festival held every September in the spa town of Lisdoonvarna, Co. Clare, with a fourth-generation matchmaker, Willie Daly. It is often dated to 1857; we have not found a primary source for that date.
Go maire sibh bhur saol nua, ‘may you live long in your new life’.
A wedding custom in your family that is not here? Tell us.