Legal pagan marriage in Ireland now possible.

Nevyn

With recent registering of of Ray Sweeny National Coordinator of Pagan Federation Ireland, on the Register of Solemnisers pagan marriages can now be legally preformed.

http://paganfederationireland.webs.com/pagancelebrants.htm

Legal Pagan Marriage

With effect from 15th December 2009,
the National Coordinator of Pagan Federation Ireland,
has been registered on the Register of Solemnisers,
under the terms of Section 53(3) of the Civil Registration Act 2004.

Consequently, it is now possible to be legally married
in a Pagan ceremony in Ireland

If you wish to be legally married in a Pagan ceremony,
please contact paganfederationireland@gmail.com
to discuss the necessary requirements.

Whats a solmeniser?
A solmeniser is a religious person who acts as a functionary and will sign the forums needed to make a marriage legal which are then processed by the register of births, deaths and marriages.

http://www.groireland.ie/getting_married.htm

2.2 MARRIAGE BY RELIGIOUS CEREMONY

Marriages by religious ceremony may be performed according to the customs and ceremonies of the church or religious body which is carrying out the ceremony. However, all the civil requirements set out in Section 1 must first be complied with and the couple must have been issued with a Marriage Registration Form by a registrar which they must show to the person solemnising the marriage. The solemniser must also be a registered solemniser, nominated by his or her church or religious body, and it is the responsibility of the couple to ensure that the person they wish to solemnise their marriage is on the Register of Solemnisers.


Temporary registrations of solemnisers of religious marriages are possible for those who only wish to solemnise a specific marriage or to solemnise marriages for a specific period of time.

The venue for a religious marriage is a matter for the authorities of the church or religious body under whose auspices the marriage is being performed.

All marriages, civil or religious, must take place at venues which are open to the public

The ceremony must be performed in the presence of two witnesses who are both over 18 years of age. Both parties must make two declarations:- a) that neither of them knows of any impediment to the marriage; and b) that they accept each other as husband and wife.

At the end of the ceremony, the solemniser, the couple, and the witnesses must all sign the MRF. The completed MRF should be given to a registrar (not necessarily the registrar who issued it) within 1 month of the ceremony, so that the marriage can be civilly registered. Please note that you will not be able to obtain a civil marriage certificate until such time as the MRF has been returned to a registrar and the marriage is civilly registered.

Toots

Well that has indeed thrown the cat among the pigeons for my upcoming nuptials!

Turquoise1

Its nice to see Ireland moving forwards for a change!

Nevyn

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article7035084.ece

From The Sunday Times
February 21, 2010
Irish couples win right to hold heathen weddings
Gabrielle Monaghan


I hereby pronounce you man and wife; you may jump the broomstick. Irish couples can now follow the example of Richard Branson’s nephew and Danny Goffey, the Supergrass drummer, by getting married in a ceremony known as a hand-fasting, after the state legalised pagan weddings.

Ray Sweeney, the national co-ordinator of Pagan Federation Ireland, has been entered on the register of solemnisers in December following a five-year campaign. Sweeney had to take his case to the Equality Authority after an initial refusal by the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

Sweeney says he has a waiting list of 40 couples seeking a legal pagan wedding. For the first time, they can marry without the requirement for a separate civil ceremony.

Sweeney is training eight other pagans to become solemnisers to cater for the growing demand for hand-fastings, which conclude with couples jumping over a broomstick to signify crossing a threshold from the old life to the new. He is also in talks with the Office of Public Works to hold ceremonies near ancient pagan sites.

Kate Deegan, who runs Co-ordination Made Easy, a wedding-planning agency in Ennis, has organised three pagan weddings, including one for Nanette and Jari Pavlova, a couple who travelled from America to marry each other for a second time in the Co Clare village of Corofin before hand-fasting was legally recognised by the state.

“When Ray Sweeney informed me that they are now legal, I thought he was pulling my leg,” Deegan said. “A white witch I worked with conducted the hand-fastings, bringing in the elements of fire, earth, wind, and water. We’ve done them on the Cliffs of Moher and further up the coast at Fanore.

“The couples used to have a civil marriage in a registry office first, but they often did it on their lunch break because they considered the pagan blessing more important.”

The tradition of hand-fasting in Ireland dates back to the ancient Celts, pagans who believed that deities existed in aspects of nature, such as trees and streams. During the hand-fasting ceremony, as depicted in the film Braveheart, the hands of the bride and groom are bound with ribbons, a custom that was the origin of the term “tying the knot”. The pair exchange drinks, feed each other food, and give each other a token of love, such as a rose, according to Sweeney, who has been conducting hand-fasting ceremonies for the past 10 years.

“Originally, I conducted these ceremonies for people who had been turned away from the Catholic church because one or both of them were divorced,” he said.

There are no figures available to show how many people Irish people describe themselves as pagans, because the information is not recorded on the census. In the 2006 census, 186,318 people described themselves as having no religion, and a further 70,322 people chose not to tick any box under the heading of religion.

Sweeney, who attends monthly pagan meetings, or “moots”, around the country, estimates that there could be up to 4,000 pagans in Ireland.

Paganism even has a quarterly magazine, Brigid’s Fire, which was launched in Ennis last month.

Dara Molloy, a former Roman Catholic priest who lives on Inis Mor, applied to become a pagan solemniser but was rejected because the weddings he performs are spiritual non-religious blessings and ceremonies. Molloy has conducted about 80 wedding ceremonies a year, including for gay couples, at locations such as the foot of Croagh Patrick since he left Catholicism to become a Celtic priest in 1996.

“To be a solemniser, you have to show that you belong to a religious group and that you meet regularly,” Molloy said. “I work out of the Celtic tradition and conduct hand-fasting ceremonies, but they are spiritual and not religious.”

Last September, Branson’s nephew, Ned Abel Smith, married Eliza, the eldest daughter of Lord and Lady Cowdray, in an open-air pagan ceremony led by a druid. In 2008, fashion designer Pearl Lowe married Danny Goffey in a pagan ceremony in which Gothic black and blood red were the colour schemes.

Yet high-profile pagan weddings don’t sit well with Sweeney, who seeks to avoid publicity for Irish hand-fastings in case they become the target of Christian zealots.

“We don’t want people shouting at us and singing hymns over us,” he said. “There are too many misconceptions about paganism. Some people think it’s Satanism, but it’s a pre-Christian religion, so how can it be anti-Christian? It’s not about dressing up in silly medieval costumes. I wear a suit with no tie.”

Urizen

That irritates me more than it soothes me. Legal marriage, yay. But keep it quiet, we don't want to upset the poor psychopathic zealot Christians.

And obviously, we'd only do it because of the Branson kid.

Not to mention that, again, it's mentioned shortcomings in the census, and I guarantee you that not a damn thing will be done to rectify it.

Nevyn

What bemused me was the tying of hands together being called Celtic as it was first an ancient Greek tradition. Most weddings are private and I can't see there being an issue of evangelical Christians protesting such a wedding, as for weddings on certain sacred sites
I would have some concerns about that myself.

pwd

Am I right in thinking the rules on a pagan wedding ceremony are very loose?
Is it a case that you can structure your ceremony any way you want? Wear what you want? Have it in any sort of nice scenic kind of location?

Like is it a case that Mr Jones and Miss Smith, who are pretty conservative imaginary people, like the idea of getting married outside - so they have a pagan wedding, which in their case is a fairly typical wedding, only it is done in a forest or something?

Nevyn

A wedding done out door is not by virtue of being out doors a pagan wedding.
What the ceremony will be will depend on the the people getting married in accordance to their tradition/spiritual practice which they will have discussed before hand with the solemnizer.

pwd

Thanks for your reply.

I'm asking about things from a different point of view though.

I know some people who are getting married in a pagan wedding. They aren't pagans. They are atheists. The ceremony won't be in accordance with their spiritual practices - they don't have any.

So I'm not asking how a pagan chooses to express their beliefs in their wedding. I'm asking why non-pagans would choose to have a pagan wedding - is it because it would allow them a lot of freedom in how it was planned?

Nevyn

pwd wrote: »

I'm asking why non-pagans would choose to have a pagan wedding - is it because it would allow them a lot of freedom in how it was planned?

Why not ask them that question?

If they are not pagan then they are not having a pagan wedding, they maybe having a pagan solmoniser marry them but that does not mean it will be a pagan ceremony, it would be the same a civil ceremony.

pwd

I did. They took offence.

They're describing their wedding as a pagan wedding. Clearly it's not a genuine pagan wedding when neither of them are pagans. Internally it's no different from a civil service. Externally they get to have it in the sort of location they want it, instead of being restricted to a registry office or a church. Either that or they're just big attention whores.

Nevyn

It is possible to be able to get the clerk from the registars office to preform weddings outside of the offices but there is a list of regulations and it can be hard to get one to do so as it can be outside office hours. So using a solmoniser who is not a civil servant can do away with some of the restriction.

Pagan can mean different things to different people, to some it's a term for nonchristian.
Oh and there are pagan nonthiests or pagan athiests, those who don't believe in gods/diety in any form but just nature.

Abhainn-Rivers

Could simply be that they are private about verbalizing their beliefs and so use atheist as a beard so to speak?

Hugo Drax

Toots* wrote: »

Well that has indeed thrown the cat among the pigeons for my upcoming nuptials!

Mine too!

Deoir

We had a civil ceremony on a Thursday with the big traditional Irish dinner and dancing afterwards, the next day we had a private handfasting with just a few friends.

This suited us much better, the ceremony was beautiful and perfect with just the people that were there.

I don't think it would have been the same if the same amount of people that were at the civil service were at the handfasting too. Everyone at the handfasting knew what this service ment to us (well me in particular, my husband is agnostic leaning towards atheist but very accepting of my beliefs) and I really treasure the memory of the ceremony to this day.

Even if this option were around for our wedding I think we would have stuck with the way that we did it.

Nevyn

I can understand that, not everyone want to have to educate the extended family about thier beliefs when it comes to haveing a wedding/handfasthing.