Christmas, a wedding and football

If there is one event that has changed beyond all recognition over the past 50 years or so it surely has to be the Irish rural wedding. While the core of proceedings - the adoption of a marriage contract by a man and a woman with a priest as witness - remains the same, modernisation has seen to it that all other aspects of both the church ceremony and subsequent celebrations have changed irrevocably.

A major change, and a very obvious one, is the time of day at which weddings are held. Traditionally, the ceremony went ahead to coincide with the usual time of morning mass in the bride's church - which might be any time between eight and nine am.

See this week's Celt for more...