Local Marriage Customs

transcribed at

Local Marriage Customs  [duchas:4747040]

60
Local Marriage Customs
Marriages take place most frequently in my locality during Shrovetide. The month considered unlucky to get married is May, and the unlucky days are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Matches are made in my locality and sometimes the girl or boy getting married has either money or a house and land, the bigger the place the bigger the fortune. Stock is sometimes given in lieu of money. On the wedding day the bride is supposed to have something borrowed and something blue, something old and something new, and if she cures it is a sign of luck. No friend of the bridegroom is supposed to come to the marriage ceremony uninvited as it is unlucky, and when they return home after being married, the two must come in together on the door. if one is after the other, that one is supposed to die first. Then if it rains it is unlucky too, as the

Local Marriage Customs  [duchas:4747041]

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old people say "happy is the bride that the sun shines on." In corn-try places there is a cake of home-made bread thrown at the bride in order that she may never know hunger.
A wedding feast is held in the bride's house, and the bride cuts the cake first, and puts some of it through her ring, for the purpose of giving it to her un-married girlfriends, to play a trick with if they taste it, and put the rest of it under their pillows, they will dream of their future husbands. Straw boys or "whalers" or "ban-beggars" call during the night, dressed with straw round their heads, and disguised in borrowed garments. Thee is a captain of them, and he has a wife, one of the boys dressed in woman's clothing. They are well received by the wedding party and when they come in, they call for the bride first (the captain) and dances with her. If they take drink hey get some, and depart after a short time. There is no "hauling-home" now ever held, but there used too one years ago.
Mrs Rushe Shankil
Alphonsus Rushe  Shankil