The Honeymoon Party? Is This The Latest Wedding Gimmick?

Ever get a wedding invite and the ominous thud of it on the doormat puts you in mind of a jury duty notice or an electricity bill?

No wonder: according to a recent survey by One4All, Irish guests pay an average of €643 on outfits, transport, reception drinks, accommodation and gifts, just to attend a wedding.

UK research by Provident goes one better, noting that guests have to shell out about £1,015 just to be a wedding guest (double for a wedding abroad). And everyone has at least one year where the entire social circle falls like dominoes and a dozen wedding invites come at an alarming clip.

That weddings can be a pricey endeavour for guests isn’t really news, but a recent addition to the entire fandango might be.

Now, though, “honeymoon parties” are being added to the traditional engagement party, hen party weekend and post-wedding BBQ fandango. “What is a honeymoon party?” you may reasonably ask.

It’s an evening event, often happening in a bride’s or bridesmaid’s home, where female guests enjoy the same merriment and libations as in a hen party, except they are invited to bring a gift that the bride can enjoy on her honeymoon.

Honeymoon parties are not replacing the popular hen party; rather, they’re replacing the old kitchen party from decades ago (which, of course, was replaced by the hen party. It’s fine, we’re all confused).

Tradition dictated that “older” married women would teach a young bride about what might happen on their wedding night. Yet the objective of today’s honeymoon party, it would seem, is to ensure that a bride doesn’t have to befall a last-minute dash to Boots for suncream.

Unreal imagination
“Years ago brides would receive gifts for their new kitchen the night before their wedding, but most couples already cohabitate by now,” says Hyde. “Often, brides will receive really thoughtful things like a travel bag, or a hair-care product pack. Sometimes, it’s unreal the imagination that people go to.

“Often mothers, grannies, under-18s and pregnant friends are not invited to the hen – who wants their granny seeing them take a pole-dancing class? – so basically they are invited to this so that everyone feels included and can enjoy the run-up to the wedding.”

Surely, I say, a honeymoon party is just another excuse to shake down guests for yet another gift?
“No one person is being shaken down as there won’t really be an overlap of people there,” says Hyde. “The bridesmaid might have to take a hit.

“I think when you’re in the zone and getting married, there’s a lot of excitement. Besides, a lot of the gifts for honeymoon parties can be under €10. To be fair to a lot of brides, they don’t go in for all the events, or they might keep some of them more low-key.”

Fifty years ago many Irish couples would marry in the morning, enjoy a wedding breakfast with family and friends, and most people would go back to work afterwards.

Fast-forward to the present day, and marriage is nowhere near the massive life step it once was. It’s an institution with a built-in escape hatch (divorce rates in Ireland are remarkably low compared with the US and UK, working out at 0.6 per 1,000 marriages, according to Eurostat, but still).

And yet, the idea of an excessive, lavish wedding with many different components is now entirely acceptable. It helps to feed into the cultural conceit that marriage is somehow an accomplishment, or a sign that you’re doing the whole adulting thing properly.

Kardashianised
While marriage isn’t the institution it once was, weddings – whether you’re a customer care rep from Cork or a legal secretary in Carlow – are now treated with the gravitas and reverence of a medieval royal union.

The entire event has become Kardashianised, and it’s rare to find brides who can withstand the siren-song of it all, especially if everyone else in their social circle has opted in.

During the leaner, post-Celtic Tiger years, a profligate wedding was gauche and tasteless, but such concerns seem to have ebbed away.

Yet once we unlock another level of wedding-related excess – the post-wedding BBQ, the hen party weekend, the weeklong wedding celebration – it’s astonishing how quickly it becomes the new normal.

There are multiple experiences for the bride now,” concedes Hyde. “We’re also starting to see a rise in ‘mother of the bride’ parties, where mums will hold a garden party for her own friends and a generic gift is brought for the mother.

Oftentimes, brides will have a spa weekend with their bridesmaids and then a girlie dinner with a week to go before the big day.

There’s often a ‘postmortem’ event after the honeymoon, where the bridal party can talk about the big day. It certainly wasn’t the way of it when I was getting married. Now most of my clients have a two-day wedding. I think some people do feel the [financial] pressure and it can be a lot of put on someone’s shoulders.”

Yet perhaps Irish brides, and their bridesmaids, have a breaking point. “We don’t have the bridal shower thing happening in Ireland, at least not yet,” says Hyde. “I do know a few people who tried to get them off the ground here and started a bridal shower business, but it didn’t quite happen. I think the honeymoon party is the closest thing we’ll get to that.”

Source: Tanya Sweeney, The Irish Times

Boy George's Family Role in Irish War of Independence Revealed in BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?

Viewers in Ireland may be interested in the subject of this week's episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?

Broadcast at 9pm on BBC 1 on Monday 23rd July the episode features Eighties popstar, Boy George, who was born George Alan O'Dowd, in 1961 in London to Irish parents.

The BBC series of Who Do You Think You Are? - which inspired a new generation of amateur genealogists researching their Family Tree -  is surprisingly now in its 15th series, while a US version is in its 10th season and the Aussie series on season 9.

RTE did produce an Irish strand of the show back in 2008 but it only ran for two seasons, most probably influenced by the small number of Irish celebrity subjects with sufficiently engaging skeletons in their historical family closets.

In this episode Boy George travels to Ireland where he learns for the first time how his great uncle Thomas Bryan had been an active member of the Irish Republican Army, and was charged with treason for his role in an attempted attack on a police truck in Drumcondra, Dublin, in 1921.

The pop star's ancestor was 23 when he became one of a group of men executed at Mountjoy Prison and buried in unmarked graves on unconsecrated ground. They would come to be known as the 'Forgotten Ten'.

Boy George, 57, was deeply troubled to learn how Thomas' widow - the star's great aunt - had been pregnant with Thomas' only child at the time of his arrest, but that the child did not survive.

The Culture Club singer  tells the cameras he is 'overwhelmed' to learn the 'incredible story' of his ancestor's link to such a dark period in Irish history

'I’m proud and I’m sad. I think that is the best way to describe how I feel,' he says.

Following a campaign by the families that lasted some 80 years the Forgotten Ten, which also included Kevin Barry - the first Irish Republican to be killed by the British since the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916 - were exhumed and buried with full state honours in 2001.

George's maternal great grandfather Richard Glynn, who was in the British Army, married his brother’s widow Mary-Jane. Mary-Jane had a daughter, Annie, from her first marriage, who married Thomas.

See the full story on BBC 1, Monday 23rd July 2018 at 9pm.

Meghan Markle's Missing Irish Branch of Family Tree Revealed

Meghan Markle was presented with documents detailing an Irish ancestor during her visit to Dublin with Prince Harry.

The young duchess discovered she is descended from a young Belfast woman named Mary, who married an English soldier in Dublin after a possible "whirlwind romance" almost 200 years ago.

Different spellings of Mary's surname resulted in some genealogists assuming she was born in Co Galway, but a number of documents found during a formal search have now established she was born in the Belfast region.

Fiona Fitzsimons and Helen Moss, genealogists with The Irish Family History Centre in Dublin, compiled the information from her father's side of the family tree. It was given to Meghan during the couple's visit to EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum.

Marriage records show that Mary McCue (McHugh) was living at Merrion Strand in Dublin when she married Thomas Bird, a private in the 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment of Foot, in Saint Mary's Church of Ireland church in Donnybrook in Dublin on Monday, January 23, 1860

Thomas had served in the army in India in the previous decade and he was living in a barracks near Donnybrook in Dublin at the time of the marriage.

The local papers reported that a hurricane had struck Ireland the previous weekend.

"And it must have been a whirlwind romance," said Ms Fitzsimons.
"Thomas's regiment had only recently returned from India after 10 years. They arrived in Dublin in August, 1859 and were stationed in Beggars Bush Barracks," she said.

Mary's father's name was listed in the marriage register as Francis McCue with an occupation of farmer. The groom's father was listed as a labourer.

In June 1860, the regiment was sent to Malta. Thomas and Mary caught a train from Kingstown, present day Dun Laoghaire, to Queenstown, now Cobh, where they boarded the steam ship Olympus.

On board the voyage to Malta were 573 members of the regiment, including 16 drummers, and 66 women and 67 children.

The regiment was stationed on the Mediterranean island until 1866. The couple had at least two children: Mary, the duchess's great-great-grandmother; and Harriett.

In March 1866, the regiment was sent to Canada. The long journey to New Brunswick in Canada may have taken its toll on Thomas who died in July 1866, aged 36.

In May 1867, Mary married a widower, William White, a soldier in the same regiment. Two years later, the regiment was transferred to Cork but Mary and William decided to remain in Canada.

In the 1871 Canadian census in New Brunswick, Mary White and her two daughters are listed as Irish and Roman Catholic and her husband William as English and a shoemaker who is a member of the Anglican Church.

Mary and William settled on a farm and Mary gave birth to two more children. Their daughter Alexandrine died as a young child. Her baptism listed Mary's surname as McKeg.

Their son William Thomas was born in 1873. The family later moved to New Hampshire in the US.

In 1883, daughter Mary married Charles Merrill in New Hampshire.

Finally, the well-travelled Belfast woman Mary White died of pneumonia, aged in her mid-50s, in New Hampshire on August 28, 1885.

Her son William Thomas died at 17 in Lakeport, New Hampshire, in 1890. His death record states his mother's maiden name was McCue and that she was born in Belfast.

In 1891, when daughter Harriett married, she listed her mother's surname as McCague.

On US census forms in 1930, Harriett stated her mother was born in Northern Ireland.

The genealogists stated: "It is only by searching forward in time, comparing the evidence in later Canadian and US documents, that we found sufficient evidence to say with certainty that Mary McCue's (McHugh's) origins were in Belfast.

"Catholic parish registers start too late for a baptism of Mary McHugh… We found no earlier records for the McHugh/McCue family of Belfast."

Ms Fitzsimons said it was a pleasure researching Mary's story.

"We want to acknowledge Lorna Moloney's work in identifying the family in US records as McCague.

"Often names in official records can be written down by officials as they sound phonetically, which can often lead to different versions of names being recorded." Ms Fitzsimons can be contacted through www.irishfamilyhistorycentre.com.

Ms Moloney, who was not involved in the formal compilation of information, independently did research on Meghan's Irish ancestry links using information available in public records.

She had noted that Mary's daughter in her marriage document had listed her mother as Mary McCague.

Ms Moloney had found a woman with that name who was born in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, in 1829 and there was a certain likelihood it could be the same woman but it was always subject to verification.

Ms Moloney said: "I'm delighted to learn this new information which has now been given to Meghan.

It's a fascinating story."

Source The Irish Independent

How To Apply to Get Married in Ireland

The Story Of the Frenchman Who Gave The Statue of Liberty To The USA

1878 - The Head of The Statue of Liberty at the Paris World Fair 

In the early 1870s, inspired by the abolition of slavery and the Union victory in the American Civil War, French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi seized upon an idea.

He would build a monumental gift for the United States, a gesture of friendship from a country that had helped secure its independence.

When Bartholdi visited the United States to gather support for the project, he identified Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor as the ideal site.

It was right at the mouth of a major port, and was federally owned “land common to all the states.”

The neoclassical statue was designed in the image of Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, raising a torch and bearing a tabula ansata, representing law.

Hand and Torch of Statue on display in 1875 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia

Head of Statue on display at Paris World Fair 1878

Bartholdi toyed with the idea of having the statue hold a broken chain, but feared such an explicit reference to slavery might be controversial. (The final statue does have a subtle chain at her feet.)

In 1875, the project was announced and fundraising began, led by French politician Édouard René de Laboulaye. Before the statue’s design had been finalized, Bartholdi built the head and torch-bearing right arm and put them on display at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and the Paris World’s Fair to drum up support for the project.

Construction began in Paris in 1877. Bartholdi recruited renowned designer Gustave Eiffel to help with the structural engineering of the statue.

Eiffel devised an innovative and flexible iron skeleton which would allow the statue to shift in the wind without cracking.

Meanwhile in New York, construction of the statue's pedestal was sluggish due to a lack of funds. Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, held a fundraising drive, promising to publish the names of everyone who donated.

The fund ultimately raised $102,000, mostly from donations of less than a dollar.

In 1885, the statue was disassembled and shipped across the ocean to New York.

Once the pedestal was completed in April 1886, the statue was reassembled by workers dangling from ropes.

Surprisingly (given the safety standards of the time), not a single worker died.

The statue, formally called Liberty Enlightening the World, was ceremonially dedicated on Oct. 28, 1886.

The monument’s signature green color, caused by the oxidization of the copper skin, did not emerge until after 1900.

Source Alex Q. Arbuckle

Illustration of the unveiling of the Statue in Paris to the US Ambassador to France in 1885

Over 1000 Sham Marriages Declared Illegal By Gardai

More than 1,000 marriages between foreign men and women in the Republic have been identified by the Garda as sham marriages of convenience.

The vast majority have been between Asian men and Eastern European women. They have been arranged, at a fee of up to €20,000 each, so the men could secure the right to live and work in Ireland.

All of the “brides” are believed to have left Ireland after fulfilling their part in the illegal marriages.

Many of the “grooms” have remained and are now having their bogus marriages cancelled, their permission to remain in the State revoked and their deportations readied.

The Irish Times has learned while Garda files have been prepared on 1,200 such marriages, the major Garda investigation into the scam is continuing.

Files on each of the 1,200 confirmed sham marriages have been sent to the Irish Nationalisation and Immigration Service, which has the power to revoke immigration status.

Security sources said the number of marriages confirmed as sham is likely to reach several thousand by the time the Garda inquiry, called Operation Vantage, was completed.

Operation Vantage
The most recent series of Garda raids under Operation Vantage occurred late last week when 17 addresses were targeted in co-ordinated searches in Dublin, Waterford and Limerick.

Some 24 officers from the Garda National Immigration Bureau’s Evader Track Unit arrested 13 men who had taken part in sham marriages. They were brought to Cloverhill, Limerick and Mountjoy prisons ahead of their deportations.

The arrested men – from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Mauritius – were being sought for deportation after Garda investigations and surveillance over several months confirmed their marriages were sham.

During the course of the searches for the 13 arrested men, a further 11 men with no immigration status in the Republic were discovered. They have been told to leave the State within a fortnight or be deported.

This strand of Operation Vantage has also identified 26 other men in the State illegally. Some had also engaged in sham marriages. Others were working full-time while on student visas or had otherwise breached the conditions of their visas.

Tightened legislation
The 1,200 marriages now confirmed as sham occurred prior to 2015 when legislation was tightened to clamp down on the problem. The Garda was given enhanced powers to object to planned marriages on the grounds they were believed to be sham.

Garda offices have closely monitored notices of intentions to marry, which must be submitted by all couples, to ensure sham marriages were prevented. Garda sources said they were also determined to catch those who had secured the right to live and work in Ireland by engaging in sham marriages before the clampdown of 2015.

Men from countries such as India, Pakistan, Mauritius and Bangladesh were coming to the Republic and claiming asylum. While waiting, and often having had their applications rejected, they were marrying Eastern European women. Through those marriages, facilitated by Pakistani fixers in Dublin, they were secured the right to live and work in Ireland permanently, thus sidestepping the immigration system.

Source: Conor Lally, The Irish Times

Release The 1926 Census

The Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO) is calling on the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar TD, and Heritage Minister, Joseph Madigan TD, to allow the early release of the original 1926 Irish Census returns.

Under the provisions of the Statistics Act 1993, the National Archives of Ireland is currently preparing to release this material in January 2027. However the previous government had committed to an early release date for the 1926 returns

As the first census undertaken by the newly established Free State, it represents a snapshot of Ireland at the end of a very turbulent decade in its history.

The population collectively bore the scars of the Great War, Easter Rising, War of Independence and the Civil War. And all this was followed by significant migration post partition.

Though the 1993 Act introduced a retrospective 100-year embargo on public access to Irish census data compiled since the foundation of the State, previous censuses had been conducted without such restriction.

Significantly both the 1901 and 1911 returns were released after only 60 and 50 years respectively, in 1961.
The 2016 Census notes fewer than 70,000 people then alive aged over 85.

The release of the 1939 National Register for England & Wales by the UK National Archives in 2015 set a precedent which should be followed in Ireland.

It was a success because, on a rolling basis, data for anyone born less than a century before was redacted.

Please join with CIGO to lobby the Taoiseach and the Heritage Minister to follow through on the commitment made in 2012 to release the 1926 Census.

Sign The Petition HERE