Although we have no real tradition of folklore relating to St Valentines Day (with the exception of the two pieces related to cards I was able to find below from the National Folklore School’s Collection), we do however have a number of traditions relating to matchmaking and marriage. Read on to find out about Shrovetide weddings, the Skellig Lists, Chalk Sunday and other traditions related to marriage and matchmaking.
St. Valentine’s Day falls on the 14th February. On that day it was a custom to send comic cards to one another. This custom has died out. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5070789/5063672/5094796
On Valentine’s Day (14th Feb) people used to send Valentine cards, which were about the size of a post card. There were coloured bows of ribbons attached to the corners and little rhymes written under them such as:-
If of me you often think
Send me back my bow of pink
If to me you would be true
Send me back my bow of blue
If you are another girl’s fellow
Send me back my bow of yellow.
If to me you would be wed
Send me back my bow of red
If with me you wouldn’t be seen
Send me back my bow of greenThe sender used to write her name in the middle of the card. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5008887/4963875/5078003
Shrovetide weddings
Shrovetide was customarily the time for traditional marriages in Ireland, with Shrove Tuesday being the optimum day of choice for such an occasion. Typically marriages were prohibited during the penitential season of Lent so people tried to marry just before its beginning. From Little Christmas (6th Jan) onwards, matchmakers would have been busy arranging marriages and the entire community would be awaiting the celebrations of the upcoming weddings of the successful matches.
Wedding customs
- Violins would be played while entering the church
- Tray of copper and silver coins were handed to the groom when exiting the church to be thrown into the air and scattered into the crowd. This inevitably drew the attention of children but also drew attention of beggars and vagrants who would gather at these events, with accounts of brawls sometimes breaking out between them for possession of the coins.
- The house of the bride’s parents was the scene of the after party, a far cry from the luxurious and expensive hotels now favoured. Music, feasting and dancing continued long into the night (and no doubt other matches were formed during the party.) On the way to the house it was not unusual for groups of boys to halt the wedding party by stretching a rope across the road. The groom would have to pay a small fee to pass.
- The bride’s mother would often break a cake over the bride’s head for luck.
Chalk Sunday
The first Sunday of Lent was known (in Munster and Leinster at least) as ‘Chalk Sunday’. Here, anyone unlucky enough not to have made a match or to have married during Shrovetide, were targeted on their way to or from church, by youngsters brandishing chalk who would proceed to mark the bachelor’s with lines and squiggles on their clothing. This for the most part would be met with good humour, at least from the younger bachelor’s who had some hope of marrying the following year. From the older generation, it might be met with verbal abuse or a chase with a walking stick. It persisted in some areas until the 1930’s or 40’s. It should be noted that being married offered an element of status within the community. An unmarried male of 50 was considered a ‘boy’ whereas a married 25 year old male was considered a man. Conversely, the same applied to women. In some areas “Salt Monday” took the place of this, where a sprinkling of salt was sprinkled on both bachelors and spinsters to preserve them till the next Shrovetide.
Skellig lists
This was a Munster tradition owing to the belief that Easter occurred a week later on Skellig Michael and thus meaning Lent had not occurred yet on the Island, allowing people an extra week to get married. This led to people being publicly targeted in a similar fashion as the Chalking with jibes such as “don’t miss the boat [to the Skelligs]”. Local poets were encouraged to write poems and lists of the unmarried people (dubbed the Skellig lists). This went to the extreme as the lists were printed out and handed around the parish (minus the printers name for fear of retribution) and large posters being printed and placed around the town advertising the “great excursion” and all those that would be taking part.
Matchmaking
In the day’s long before online dating sites or “swiping right”, many matches were carried out by a third party arbiter, sometimes in a semi-professional or professional manner. This third party representative was sometimes an acquaintance of the people involved and would try to negotiate a pairing and the accompanying dowry (not unlike the bride price or coibhche in the Brehon Laws). The Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival that features a third generation Matchmaker, is an annual festival that harks back to those bygone days, attracting many singles each year. A few accounts of this practice of matchmaking, as found on Duchas.ie, are below. You can follow the links to see the original manuscripts.
From a few days after Christmas until Ash Wednesday in every year is called Seraft, and long ago country people made matches for their sons and daughters during that time, and any girl that was on the marriage list and did not succeed in getting a husband was supposed to be very sulky and have a puss on, the last Monday of the matchmaking period. This was called puss Monday. When a young man wanted to get married he looked around his own village and the village next to it to find a suitable girl. Then he asked somebody who was acquainted with the girl to go and see her parents and see if they would give their consent, and if they agreed they would arrange to meet together the next day in a public house in town, and the young man would stand drink for everyone. Then they started the matchmaking and her father asked the man what lands he owned or how much fortune was he looking for, then if they could come to a settlement the girl’s father would have to give the boy the fortune. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4428050/4372260
Ancient Marriage Customs
Shrove Tuesday is the last day on which anybody can get married before Lent. Most marriages take plave between Advent and Lent. IN country places most marriages take place as the result of matchmaking. What is known as matchmaking is, when a man wishes to get married he looks for a girl of marriageable age, who has a good fortune. When he decided upon the girl he wished to ask in marriage but he gets a friend to go to the girl’s house to make terms with the father. The friend finds out what fortune the father is willing to give her. The friend goes back to the man and tells him the fortune. If the man thinks the fortune is big enough he goes to the girl’s house and often brings a bottle of whiskey with him. If the terms are settled satisfactorily the bottle of whiskey is produced to settle the business. The date of the marriage is then fixed. https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5044823/5041972
Wakes
Looking at the solemn nature surrounding death and the funeral process in the modern day, one would not expect them to be a place where matchmaking would occur. The Irish wake however, was a surprisingly social event. I wrote an article on the gender roles associated with the wake (and some of the traditions associated with it) that can be read here. But in short, it was a time where the whole community gathered, and outside of the formalities associated with the process, it was a time where the young people gathered to compete in feats of strength, drinking and taking part in (sometimes borderline bawdy) games and fake weddings among other activities. This sometimes resulted in romantic matches and subsequent marriages. If you want to learn more about the games and activities, Irish Wake Amusements is a fantastic book.
Marriage divination
A common form of divination in Ireland was related to marriage. This was mostly carried out by women wanting to see who their future husband would be, but there are accounts of men also carrying out these forms of divination. The optimum time for this practice was Halloween when the veil between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest. People took advantage of the temporal liminality to divine the future. A list of these traditions can be found in my Halloween article here. Looking closer to Valentine’s days, at Shrovetide, the following tradition was recorded: Pancake tossing on Shrove Tuesday. Tossing of the first pancake is done by the eldest unmarried daughter of the host house. An unsuccessful flip of the pancake means she will not be married in the coming year. If successful, she cuts as many slices as there are people present and gives a piece to each person. A wedding ring might have been placed in the batter (similar to in barm brack at Halloween) and whoever finds it will have great luck receiving a prosperous and loving marriage.
Sources:
Duchas.ie
The Year in Ireland by Kevin Danaher
Ireland's Folklore and Traditions 