Hi Marion
I can't speak to what happened in Tyrone with your family but I grew up
in a Scot-Irish community in Canada and what you described of the
family, daughter and illegitimate child would be very typical of how
they would be treated in our community. In my family and neighbours they
were still like a Clan while not obviously officially. Children who
were related and some who were not but fell under the protection of the
Clan were looked after by the family best able to care for them and keep
them in the community. There was always people who wanted to cast
aspirations on to those children and their mothers but the Clan
depending on it strength, physical or financial or other wise protected
them from the harm that might befall them. They were raised usually in
the community as an open secret which was understood and was not held
against them. However out side that group was a different and often less
forgiving story. Many children were rejected when new wives came on the
scene or outside influences over took the family who sheltered the
child. At these points the child or mother would if possible move around
the group looking for work and a home. If that was impossible then it
was brutally hard on those individuals. For that reason you see the
movement of young people in the records as you do. That is my experience
living in a world with few social services and close family ties. It was
I believe probably a very old and effective way of caring for people who
were in effect defenseless in a cruel world looking for scapegoats...
Cheers
Ron McCoy
On 2020-06-22 7:15 a.m., Marion via CoTyroneList wrote:
Elwyn,
Many thanks for all the information and suggestions. I have been trying to
access the book you recommended , not very successfully, but I have found some
journal articles he wrote, so I shall be busy reading.
I was interested in the view that couples mostly selected each other , as I
have read elsewhere that marriage was more of a business matter with dowries
being paid, and wondered how true this was. My own ancestors lived in the
parish of Urney , in both Tyrone and Donegal. The Tyrone family were Church of
Ireland and small farmers, and the men seemed to marry the daughters of
neighbouring farmers, who were Presbyterians. I have wondered about the basis
for their choice but it seems it was to do with demographics as much as
anything. There were many daughters in the family ,some of whom married, some
remained unmarried and others emigrated to America . Their lives seem to have
been much more uncertain.
My Donegal ancestors were Presbyterians and distinctly Ulster Scots and fit
your description of their patterns of marriage, with the same family names
being linked repeatedly over the generations and the marriage of relatives
often occurring. This seems to have declined in the beginning of the twentieth
century.
My interest in illegitimacy was also related to an ancestor born out of wedlock
in the Tyrone branch. The mother was the daughter of a small farmer whose wife
had died when her children were very young. She disappeared from the records
for a while but was obviously sent to St Johnstone in Donegal, as there is a
baptism for her son recorded in Taughboyne Parish church in 1889. After this
discreet birth she appears to have returned to the family although it is not
clear what happened to her son. After her fathers death she continued there
acting as housekeeper to her then unmarried brother. In 1901 she was still with
her brother but looking at the inhabitants of another house on a neighbouring
farm , owned by the family, her son, aged 11, is found lodging with them. By
1911 he was back with his mother, her brother and his wife in the family home.
This was obviously a caring family, (her father had left her well provided for
in his will) but they must have been concerned about the stigma of
illegitimacy. I was curious about this and wondered if it was an isolated
example but from what you say families were often as supportive as possible.
Well thanks again for all your knowledgeable comments and your willingness to
share.
Regards Marion
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: elwyn soutter
Sent: 21 June 2020 18:56
To: CoTyroneIreland.com Mailing List
Cc: Marion
Subject: Re: [CoTyroneMailingList] Marriage Customs
Marion,
I suspect that a full answer to your interesting question could fill a hundred pages.
One source you might want to investigate is: “The Population of Ireland 1750 – 1845” by KH Connell, published in Oxford 1950. One of the many causes of the problems that plagued Ireland in the 1800s was the fact that there had been a massive population explosion. It went up from 3 million in 1741 to 8 million in 1841. (It’s only 6 million today). No-one is entirely certain why. A reduction in neo-natal death rates was a factor. Connell also speculates that they started to marry younger and that consequently the reproductive rate ( R ) increased significantly. And as we all know these days, if the R number rises significantly you can see an exponential increase in whatever you are studying. In this case, children.
The book therefore spends quite a bit of time discussing the customs surrounding marriage, and also different customs between Catholics and Protestants. There’s some interesting but grim stuff about arranged marriages in the West of Ireland, with girls being dragged to the altar by their fathers, bathed in tears, to marry men they hadn’t a notion for. “The Chief time for marriages is from Christmas until Lent, being the season of the year when people have the most leisure for settling such business.” (page 55).
But not all marriages were arranged. Couples mostly seemed to select each other in the ways we would recognise today. Another factor was that marriage was the only thing they could look to, to break the miserableness of their existence. “Perhaps the strongest motives urging young people towards early marriages were the wretchedness of their living conditions and their realization that no ordinary amount of self-denial or industry gave promise of better times. Contemporaries frequently regarded early marriage as one of the evils of poor living conditions.” (p57).
Anyway, as I say, that study contains quite a bit on marriage customs.
Some couples eloped (if they had the means). For years the main ferry between Scotland and the Belfast area was between Portpatrick in Wigtownshire and Donaghadee in Co. Down. So couples eloped to Portpatrick to get married. Scottish law then (and now) allows a couple to marry at 16, and without parental consent. (In England and Ireland parental consent was required till you were 21). Some folk may have heard of people running off to Gretna Green to get married. Gretna Green is on the border between England & Scotland and so was handy if you were English and in a hurry to get married, but Portpatrick was the equivalent if coming from Ireland. Here’s a link to marriages in Portpatrick involving couples from Ireland, going back to 1721. Most of these are presumably elopements. I can’t think of any other reason for marrying there:
http://www.ulsterancestry.com/free/ShowFreePage-39.html#gsc.tab=0
The Ulster-Scots are an interesting group. I did a course at Queens University, Belfast a year or two back on migration into Ireland. The lecturer drew a contrast between various invaders such as the Vikings and the Ulster – Scots. In spite of being present for 300 years or so, the Vikings left very little impact on Ireland. There’s a few place names such as Strangford (strong fjord) and the odd surname which may point to Norse origins, but by and large there’s not much sign of them. Part of the reason was that they only settled around the coast, and not in sufficient numbers to dominate the population. But another factor was that they didn’t bring any women with them. If they needed women then the answer was usually a bit of rape and pillage amongst the locals. However the significance of this was that if they settled and remained in Ireland, as some undoubtedly did, then they quickly integrated into the local community and their Norse identity was soon lost. In contrast, the Scots came with equal numbers of men and women. They tended to marry each other and kept their separate identity. They often looked down on the native Irish and on Catholicism which was the denomination that most had fought to get rid of in Scotland in the 1500s, so that limited the tendency for inter-marriage, though for all that there were plenty of mixed marriages. But overall the Ulster – Scots, a high percentage of whom were Presbyterian tended to marry each other. (There were Scots Catholics and Episcopalians who settled in Ireland too, but the majority were Presbyterian). This tendency can be found in Ireland even today and in part accounts for the separate identity that many in Ulster still feel, which is why they often identify as Ulster- Scots, rather than Irish.
You ask about illegitimacy and the churches attitude. There was plenty of illegitimacy around. One study I read suggested that about 1% of births were illegitimate in the mid 1800s. There were local exceptions especially if there was a workhouse in the area, and workhouse births distorted the figures:
http://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/a-sexual-revolution-in-the-west-of-ireland/
Before the Poor Law was introduced c 1840, the churches were responsible for supporting the poor in their congregations. Consequently they took a great interest in illegitimate children because they might have to support them financially. Presbyterians usually called a woman with an illegitimate child up before the Kirk Session and asked her who the father was. If she revealed that, he too was summoned and interviewed. He was put under pressure to support the child, and to marry the woman if she was willing. They had to admit their sins in front of the congregation (ante-nuptial fornication), and were denied Communion for a while. Sometimes they had to sit separately from the rest of the congregation. Records of these examinations can be found in the Kirk Session minutes where they survive. (Usually in PRONI). Other denominations also pursued errant fathers though – in my opinion - not always with the same determination as Presbyterians.
You can spot some illegitimate children in the 1901 & 1911 censuses where they have been “adopted” by the grandparents. They appear as the apparent extra son or daughter of a woman in her 60s, so the family were evidently often doing their best to reduce the stigma.
In my own family I have an ancestor who had 2 illegitimate children over a 3 year period around 1825. The Kirk Session minutes show that the alleged father readily agreed he was the father of the first and paid up, but he said he was not the father of the second and refused to pay, so the church paid for that child for a while. Eventually 1 child died. Then the mother was arrested for burglary and theft. (She stole a bundle of clothes because she was living rough and destitute). She was taken into custody and eventually transported. Her remaining son was looked after by her married sister. So the family sort of rallied round in some cases, I would say.
Elwyn
On Sun, 21 Jun 2020 at 13:11, Marion via CoTyroneList
<cotyronelist@cotyroneireland.com> wrote:
Hello all,
I wonder if anyone can tell me or suggest where I might find out about marriage
customs in nineteenth century Ireland, particularly amongst Ulster Scots. Were
they based on social, cultural or religious factors ? Did the bride and groom
have much input ? Were protestant and Roman Catholic approaches very different?
Also what were the attitudes to illegitimacy by family members and society at
large? How were the mothers and children treated ?
Thank you in advance for your help !
Regards Marion Shephard
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