Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1877 — Irish Marriage Customs. [ARTICLE]

Irish Marriage Customs.

Any one who has lived among the Irish people will know that with them love la by no means an over-mattering passion. The instances of crime committed with love as an Incentive are rare; you seldom hear of Pat stabbing Ills sweetheart in a fit of jealousy, or pommelling his more fortunate rival to death, as b the case elsewhere. In general, and particularly in the North of Ireland, marriages are arranged in a cool, mercenary spirit, which docs not leave much room for romance They are generally conducted by the father* and mothers of the contracting parties, in the presence of either the landlord or agent, and the scenes are sometimes in the highest degree comic. The parents haggle over the terms of the agreemom, without the slightest regard for the feelings of the yonng people, who are looked upon as so much live lumber. A pig, a cow or a sheep has often been the cause of breaking off a match nearly concluded ; even a goose has been known to turn the scale. Very lately. In a certain province in Ulster, a well-to-do-farmer had for some time been dividing his attentions pretty equally between two fair ones-one a widow, the other the only daughter of a rich pig-jobber. The cause of the gentleman’s vacillation was that each of the candidates had the identical qualification —a cow and two pigs. The matter was at last decided by the girl’s father throwing In a boneen (yonng pig), which at once decided the matter, and the widow was non-snited. A friend told me an amusing anecdote of two of his tenants who were arranging a marriage between their respective children. Both were wealthy cattle-drovers, and the matter in dispute was not beasts but hundreds. After much haggling over the terms, the matter ended by the father of the young man saying, “ Give another hundred, ana f&ix, be my soul, you may diity the bo/.” 1 add, for the information or those who do not know the custom of an Irish fair, tuat when an animal is finally sold the buyer always rubs a piece of mud on its quarters; this is called “dirtying the baste;" hence the apropos expression of the drover. In a rather retired part of the South of Ireland, near the once famous Skibbereen, a curious and not uninteresting custom prevails, of “ shrafting.” It takes its came from Shrove (otherwise Shraft) Tuesday, on which day a regular matrimonial “Tattersall” is held, where all the “ likely” boys and girls in the parish are on view, ana all the “ matches” in the year are made. For days before there is quite a stir in the neighborhood, and a twitter runs through the entire female jopulation. There is a universal stitchng and buying of ribbons; every girl vou meet on the road holds out her hand fora sixpence; and you can’t speak to a domestic servant without her hanging out signals of distress. Indeed, there is this objectionable side to the proceeding, that it disorganizes one’s establishment; far just as you have caught and trained a neathanded Phyllis for yourself, she is sore to be pounced on and carried off by some of the coast-guards, who always attend the shrafting, from the fishing village near at hand. The shrafting is m itself a pretty sight, and would furmsh a subject for the pencil of any wandering artist, if such came that way. The girls stand in a row on the village green, under the spreading branches of a fine old copper beech-tree. There is every expression on thsir faces — anxiety, curiosity, timidity, dull stupidity, sharp, shrewish interest; and here and there yen come on such a pretty country beauty, with that indescribable half-arch, Ualf-ahy look in the eyes which Maclise has caqght in perfection. At a little distance are clustered alotof shame-faced-looking men—“the boys,” as they are called —all in their Sunday suits, and evidently ill at ease, eyeing with some distrust the superior attractions of the coast guards, who are like the red-coato, favorites among the ladies. But that in reality matters little, as the real conduct of the affair is ia the hands of “ the powers that be,” the fathers and mothers, who haggle and quarrel over their respective children, sometimes breaking dp the negotiations abruptly, and carrying off either ion or daughter, as the case may be, as they would an unsalable beast from a fair. Of course, little bits of romance crop up here, as elsewhere; cases of money versus love, and young hearts sold to the highest bidder, just as they are inaßelgravian drawing-room. By the by, what wouldn’t our fashionable mothers and worn-out chaperones give for ashrafting to be held once a year in Hyde Park; how much trouble and expense it would save; and what glorious fun it would be to see the Countess of D wid old Lady Man tower having a hand-to hand fight over the persons of Lord Fitznoodle and the Honorable Emilia!— English Paper.