School: Bellanagare (roll number 2968)
- Location:
- Bellanagare, Co. Roscommon
- Teacher: Seán Mac Dochair
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0244, Page 116
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- Local Marriage Customs.
Marriage generally took place locally in olden times during Shrove tide. There were certain days of the week regarded as unlucky. Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth and Wednesday the best day of all, Thursday for losses and Friday for crosses and Saturday no good at all. May is said to be an unlucky month in which to get married and June is the luckiest month of the year.
Long ago when a boy or girl were getting married a match was made. The boy usually sent a match maker to the girl's house to ask her parents for her. There was a matchmaker in my village named Martin Cunningham. When he went to a house to make a match he always brought a bottle of whiskey
with him. Sometimes if a girl did not want to marry the man whom her parents had appointed for her, she would marry a man of her own choice and this was called ''a runaway marraige.''
When a girl got married generally therewas a dowry given to her by her parents such as money or land or stock. About eighty years ago marraige sometimes took place at wakes. There were two witnesses present but no priest. The bond was never broken. Long ago side-cars were the only vehicles of locomotion. On a wedding day from ten to fourteen side-cars were(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Mary Geraghty
- Gender
- Female
- Informant
- Michael Geraghty
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 65
- Address
- Bellanagare, Co. Roscommon
