School: Balrath (1) (roll number 9770)
- Location:
- Balrath, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: C. Ní Pharthaláin
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0719, Page 325
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Balrath (1)
- XML Page 325
- XML “Marriage Customs”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- Match-making was a great go long ago but it is gone out of date now the mane (looking for a wife) used to some the girls house and bring another man along with him and a bottle of whiskey and treat her and her father and mother. The when he would have her in humour he would ask her to marry him. If she said 'yes' the match was made if the father and mother consented. If she said 'no' he would have to try another house.
A 'wife-hunter' often had to spend the whole night going from house to house as it was considered a terrible disgrace to return without getting a wife after setting out to look for one. There was a match-maker in every district.
The man used to marry the women with fortunes. The would get about £300. They would get the money rolled up in a nag or an old stocking.(continues on next page)
- Collector
- Brigid Hand
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Balrath, Co. Westmeath
- Informant
- John Hand
- Relation
- Parent
- Gender
- Male
- Age
- 60
- Occupation
- Farmer
- Address
- Balrath, Co. Westmeath
