The Matchmaker
Very often a matchmaker was used to help find a suitable partner. This person could be male or female, was often considered to be wise and knew most of the local community. Sometimes it was a friend or relative of the couple themselves. A common time for matchmaking to take place, according to Kevin Danaher, was between Christmas and Women’s Christmas (6th January).
According to accounts relating to the west of Ireland the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a man might approach the matchmaker and discuss with him those women he liked. The matchmaker would then consider which women were good potential matches based on his knowledge of both individuals.
Often once the potential matches had been selected the matchmaker would set one evening for the house of the first choice and speak with the father, extolling the virtues of the young man. If the father was interested, then he could arrange to meet the potential groom’s father for further discussions and to walk the land of the farm his daughter would be moving to. The extent to which the daughter was involved in the decision depended on the father.
If the father was not interested, the matchmaker might go on to the house of the second choice, and so on until dawn broke. The reason he had to keep pressing on was that the following day everyone would know of his visits, and no-one else would be interested in a proposal from the potential groom, knowing he had been rejected by others, so the matchmaker had to try to find a match that evening.
Once an initial introduction had been made, the two fathers would meet to discuss the details – the main one being the dowry (spré). This could be made in cash, cattle, land or other such goods. Certain accounts suggest that sometimes a greater dowry would be given for a plain daughter!
Often if the dowry was financial this would not be used by the groom’s family but held as a dowry enabling one of their daughters to marry. In this way, dowries were often ‘recycled’ many times, and a sister might have to wait for her brother to marry before she herself had any chance of getting married. If a groom had no sisters then clearly this was a benefit as the dowry could be put into the farm.
As well as providing a dowry, a young woman brought with her additional labour and the ability to produce the next generation to work on the farm. Often half the dowry would be delivered on the day of the wedding and the remainder on the birth of the first child.