School: Headfort
- Location:
- Virginia, Co. Cavan
- Teacher: Miss J.E. Browne
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0999, Page 058
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- XML School: Headfort
- XML Page 058
- XML “Old Marriage Customs”
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- (continued from previous page)dream on at night, they think they will dream about the man they will marry. There is usually a at the wedding and all the guests go home drunk.
Straw boys used to come on the night of the wedding and they would dance and sing outside the bride''s house. If they did not get any liquor to drink, they used to damage gates and palings out in the yard and fields.
Years ago the married couple, when coming home in the train, had to go about six miles or so in a horse and carriage till they were met by a crowd of people who took the horses out of the carriage and they would draw the carriage with ropes, round the village and then to the couples home. A bonfire was lit outside the couple's home that night.
After the wedding ceremony in the church the guests would have a race to the bride's home on horses, men would take horses out of ploughs and join in the race, the winner got a bottle of whiskey. Wives used to sit on the horses with there husbands.
An old marriage custom which is still kept is to tie old shoes to the back of the car which conveys the couple from the church or to throw rice on the couple after the ceremony.
- Collector
- Alma Mc Quade
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Virginia, Co. Cavan
