Béaloideas Chiarraí / Kerry Folklore

                      
                       Probably west Kerry, 1930s/1940s.                                       Newly weds.                  

                                                                                                     You are reading Love and Marriage - Archive     

 ‘With the weddings then, it was all match-making that time, sure you wouldn’t know your wife or your husband to be until you met them the day above at

the altar, that was a fright altogether. One of my pals from Burnham met his wife at the altar in the church on their wedding day and sure it was a dead

happy marriage. You could be lucky, but you could be unlucky too.’

Jacky Foley (b. c.1931), Keel. Lifetimes – Folklore from Kerry, p. 99.

 

                                    

                           Group of young adults, probably 1940s.                                                Wedding party, February 1946.

Cáit Ní Achoirinn is married forty-eight years and recalls: "We married in Listry Church because my next door neightbour had died suddenly and she

was reposing in my local church, the Sacred Heart Church in Milltown and people said it wasn't lucky to get married in a church with remains reposing

in it so we had no choice but go to Listry. The church that we married in was knocked down and there is a new one in its place.'

Cáit Ní Achoirinn (b. 1932), Killorglin. Crossroads - Folklore from Kerry, p. 125.

 

                      

                                                                 Love nest!                                                                                     An extended family, probably west Kerry, 1930s/1940s.

 

'I met one of these casual dancing partners, a blonde-haired fellow and not bad looking at all, I can tell you. After a while he said, “I am taking you home,

you know,” and I said, “are you now,” and I said, “who might you be?” He said, “well, I am Pat Joy’s son,” and I said  “I have heard of you.’  … ‘Home he

came with me anyway and we rambled around from dance hall to dance hall. We had a great time for about four years and then he said, “I am getting

married to you!” And I said, “are you now.” So though we hadn’t a bob to our names, we were married by a young curate; he was shaking with the fright

because the parish priest was away and William put the ring on my right hand and I told him it was the wrong hand and oh my God – I used

always say to him I have no trouble in breaking this, because I am not married properly at all, you put the ring on the wrong finger.’

Debbie Joy (b. c. mid 1920s), Beaufort. Crossroads - Folklore from Kerry, p. 11.                                                          
         

                                                                       

                          Young couple, 1930.                                                                 Puck Fair 1951.

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