Legal pagan marriage in Ireland now possible.

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.”

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?