Transcript:
Hi, welcome to my channel. I thought I’d do a video on Irish wedding traditions. Some of these are still popular and practiced today. Some of these are quite uncommon, but they all have a lot of history in old. Irish wedding traditions that go about hundreds or even thousands of years. So here’s my top ten number one handfasting. This is where couples would have their hands tied together with a rope or a ribbon, and that’s literally where the phrase tying the knot comes from from. Han fasting, tying their hands together and this tradition started. It was first documented in Ireland in 7,000 BC, so 9,000 years ago and they were doing Han fasting. But back then it wasn’t actually to start a marriage. It was to start a trial marriage so couples would come and have their hands bound together and then they’d live together. They’d consummate their relationship. They basically live as a married couple, but then after year they could make the decision. Do they want to stay together or do? They want to separate, so if they decided they want to stay together, they would be officially married, and if they decided not to then they break up and find new partners so back then it was more of an engagement ritual and nowadays is performed during an actual wedding ceremony and it does symbolize the couple coming together in marriage so and the actual symbol of handfasting has changed in the last nine thousand years. It’s a beautiful way to symbolize a union and it’s remained hugely popular in Ireland and in other places, I know Kate Middleton and Prince William did a ritual it symbolized Han passing up their own wedding ceremony Number Two, the magic handkerchief. This is a really sweet tradition. I absolutely love this. Basically, a bride on her wedding day would carry around a handkerchief, a lace or linen handkerchief and she either carried in her bouquet or a Dan, her sleeve or somewhere incorporated her dress and this handkerchief was to and bring about good luck with fertility so and after her wedding day, she would keep it, and then on the christening of her firstborn child, she would sew it into a bonnet for the baby to wear on their special day on this magic handkerchief is supposed to be passed down generation to generation, and I absolutely I think it’s such a sweet tradition. I didn’t know about this tradition, but my grandmother did give me one of her old handkerchiefs to carry with me on my wedding day, and I wore it and just down the front of my wedding dress. And it was just really nice to have for me was just kind of something from my grandmother. Close to my heart, my wedding day. But I didn’t know the whole thing about making it into a bonnet for your baby’s first christening. I would have loved to have done that, but am I do still have the handkerchief? And I plan to give it to my daughter on her wedding day, so I’m keeping it and in a special place, so maybe she could do the whole baby bonnet thing, And if she has kids in future number three, the child of Prag. So this tradition became popular in the 18th century and it’s still hugely popular today. A lot of brides still do this and tradition. Today, basically, it’s a little statue of baby. Jesus, dressed in elaborate robes and it is supposed to and keep away the rain for your wedding day and give you Sun and good weather on your big day. There’s a lot of debate over exactly where you’re supposed to put the child of Prague, and but I think traditionally they say the night before your wedding, and you’re supposed to put it in the garden of the bride’s house in a bush facing the house, but some people say you’re supposed to have it facing away from the house. Some people say you’re supposed to bury it up to the neck or bury it all the way some people say, and you’re supposed to take off the head and some people put it in the bride’s hallway with money underneath as the offering, and but brides swear by it, and they insist that this is the reason the childhood. Prague is the reason they had good weather on their wedding day. I know Pierce Brosnan and has said that he believes the child of Prague was successful on his wedding day. He got married Island and he said he put this little statue under a bush on the west side of the garden, where he was getting married. So worked for him number for me. Na Ma La Mina. Mala translates to the month of honey and this ritual would last for one full moon, and this is actually where the term honeymoon comes from. We all know what a honeymoon is nowadays and it’s hugely popular, you know? After the wedding, the bride and groom go off on holiday together where they spend a week or a month or whatever and spending time together, but the origins of this tradition are very different from what they are today so back. Hundreds of year go. The honeymoon actually meant that for one month following their wedding. The couple would be alone together. They stayed together and every night they drink this meat. This and sweet tasting honey wine that was gifted to them by their wedding guests and this honey wine was supposed to be good for virility and fertility, and hopefully the bride would fall probably within one full moon of her wedding day, so one month, one full moon of honey wine. And that is where honeymoon comes from so still practiced today, but in a very different way from where it originates in early. Irish Times number five, a lucky horseshoe, so I think everyone around the world and knows that a horseshoe is a symbol of good luck. So traditionally, Irish Brides would carrier and a horseshoe with them on their wedding day to bring extra look to their marriage, and and they’d carry ride with them on their wedding day, always facing up so that the good luck from the day falls into the horseshoe and then the groom would put it up in their new marital home, usually over a doorframe and it would keep the good look and coming into the horseshoe and it was a really bad thing. If it ever was put upside down because the good luck would fall out back in the olden days, the shoes had to be iron, which were really heavy and the brides would had them sewn. Is there underskirt of their wedding dress? And it was also even luckier if the horseshoe was worn because it would bring with it powerful energy from the horse that had worn it so and these days. Brides don’t want to have an old worn iron horseshoe sewn onto their wedding dress and have to carry it around so heavy so nowadays to incorporate the good-luck horseshoe and Brides can have, you know a symbol of a horseshoe on their bouquet or and you know, sewn into their garter or something where they can have a wooden replica another nice way of incorporating the horseshoe into your wedding, and this is done with a lot of ceremonies these days and just after the wedding ceremony, the bride is presented with a horseshoe from a child, Usually a flower girl or something. I’m not supposed to give her the good luck So and the Lucky Horseshoe Number six, the clattering, so the cloud ring. I think everyone knows the cloud ring. It’s a huge symbol of Irishness on it originated in the 17th century. During that, depending on what way you wear it, it shows where you are in your relationships. So the symbol of it is to Hannes, holding a heart with a crown on top on the two hands symbolize friendship. The heart symbolizes love and the crown symbolizes loyalty so and that’s right, That’s what it represents. The rules are if you wear it on your right hand. Facing outwards like with the point of the heart facing out. Then that means you are single. I’m looking for love if you turn around and point it the other way point it into your heart. It means you’re in a relationship when you get engaged. You move it to your left hand with the heart pointing out and then when you get married, it’s turned around on pointing in. There’s four different ways to wear it and that represent the four different stages of your relationship. So the cloud ring is still hugely popular, but these days is not commonly used as a wedding or engagement ring, but when you get married, you still are supposed to turn it around and fun fact, that very famous statue in Disneyland of Walt Disney holding Mickey Mouse’s hand, Walt Disney’s actually wearing a cloud ring and thought so apparently he and his wife when they were in Ireland, they got matching cloud rings and put them on and never took them off and for the rest of their married lives, and but he’s actually wearing it the wrong way he’s wearing it on his right hand facing out, which means he’s single. I’m looking for love, but we won’t judge him for that number seven sixpence in the shoe. So everyone knows that rhyme, something old. Something new something borrowed something blue onto sixpence in her shoe, but a lot of people don’t know that last line of it, but and that is the old traditional rhyme, and it did have that last line about a sixpence in her shoe, so a bride would traditionally wear an Irish sixpence in her shoe in her left shoe and this would bring good luck for a wealthy and prosperous marriage there. Actually, six pence is art in circulation. Ireland anymore. But you can still buy them just for the purpose of wearing them in your wedding shoe on your wedding day, and it’s not that comment, but a lot of Irish Brides still do it and still swear by it, and it’s very important for them to keep this tradition, and then nowadays, though a lot of brides prefer to glue it to the bottom of their shoe tape, It’s not an issue because not as comfortable to wear it and the inside actually did this tradition on my own wedding day, and but it wasn’t a higher sixpence. I think it was like whatever coin I could find like. I don’t know a ten cent coin or something, uh. I don’t think it lasted long, cuz. I was wearing open-toed shoes, so I think it flew in no time at all, but I tried. I tried to represent that old tradition and the Irish sixpence in the shoe number eight. The make up bell. This is another tradition that I think is so sweet. I really like it, but it kind of has a dark history. Basically, you know, traditionally. After a wedding in a church, the church bells ring. I’m a ring to symbolize the driving away of evil spirits and to remind the couple of the vows they’ve just taken but in penal times in Ireland. This wasn’t allowed if you don’t know what penal times were in Ireland, It was basically a time when Catholics were penalized for practicing their religion, so Catholic wedding ceremonies and masses and things were done usually in secret, so they couldn’t be doing any loud bell ringing. This was in arranged the 16th and 17th centuries, so because they couldn’t have the bells ringing and the couple was usually gifted a little belt and like a little handheld. Bell that would symbolize and the church bells on this Bell would be kept in the marital home and it was called the make up Bell because if ever, the couple were in a fight or an argument and they just wanted to end, one of them could pick up the bell and ring it and it would remind each other of their values just like the church bells would have done and that’s a truce and they’re not allowed to fight anymore. Most the penal laws ended in Ireland during the 19th century, and so Catholics could get married in church again. They could ring the bells, but and the make up. Bell is still today. A popular gift for Irish weddings number nine, the Irish wedding coin. The Irish wedding coin is a very old tradition that a lot of couples still use in their ceremonies. Today, basically, the groom gifts, the wife, a silver coin and usually just after the ring exchange and this is to represent that he will share with her all of his worldly possessions and the lion, he says with it is, I give you this as a token of all I possess on these days. It’s more common for the bride and groom to both exchange and coins, because you know, women work these days have their own income these days they both share with each other all that they possess honest. Good luck! If when they’re exchanging coins, it’s good luck. If the coins clink. It means that they’re gonna be blessed with children. You can get these coins engraved with your initials and your wedding date and you get these in jewelers. It’s still hugely popular and basically, the silver coin is supposed to be an heirloom for generations and the mother is supposed to haunt this coin on to her eldest born son on his wedding day and he gifts it to his bride so and then it goes down from generation to generation, and so it’s a really sweet tradition, The Irish wedding coin number ten ring warming. This is another old tradition that I absolutely love. It’s not so common these days, but in Ancient Ireland and the bride and groom’s wedding rings would be passed around to all the guests, and so they could bestow on it. Their blessings or prayers or good wishes for the bride and groom, So during the ceremony and the priest or whoever is performing, the ceremony would ask the Rings be passed around on this pass from guests to guests, and they say a silent whatever they want to on the Rings, warm up the Rings and pass them on to the next person. So by the time it reaches, it goes back to the bride and groom. These rings are full of good energy and positive vibes from all of their loved ones, and then they perform the ring exchange. And I just loved. I think that is so sweet and a great way to include all your guests in your ceremony. And as I said, it’s not that common these days. I’ve only seen that a1 ceremony and the funny thing is that ceremony was actually in New York so and I’ve actually never seen it in Ireland, but it has its roots in old Irish history, so that’s it. They are my top ten Irish wedding traditions. If you liked this video, please give a thumbs up. If you want to see more, please subscribe and thanks for watching bye. [music] you!