Sex and Marriage in Ancient Ireland

by Patrick C. Power

The Norman king, Henry II, came to Ireland in the 12th century with the intention of converting the Irish to the "True Faith". What type of society had he come to convert? The outside accepted view was that Irish people were near-savages and that their marriage customs caused them to be regarded as incestuous, so that the invasion, in the eyes of the invaders, was in the nature of God's work, to redeem the people from their abominations and iniquities. This book endeavours to throw some light on the attitudes of the native pre-Christian and early-Christian society to sex and marriage. Patrick C. Power is the author of "The Book of Irish Curses" and "History of South Tipperary".

• ISBN10: 0853424756
• ISBN13: 9780853424758
• Publish Date: January 1977
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 12 February 1993
• Publish Country: IE
• Imprint: The Mercier Press
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 89
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Even if the Claddagh Ring is from the medieval or later period of Irish History, the copy I had has a slightly different cover, what's between the covers is excellent and should be compulsary reading for writers writing about Celtic Ireland, pre-imposition of English Law.

Power makes this quite readable and includes occasional side-swipes at modern laws and how he finds that the Brehon rulings are much more civilised and at least once he bemoans the fact that we didn't return to them when we achieved indpendence (though the Irish Civil War may have been instrumental in disrupting plans like that.)

Marriage in Ireland was a fluid concept with a variety of forms, from temporary to more permanent, though all could be finished with a divorce and what a woman brought into a relationship and the fruits of her labours were part of the settlement when seperation occured.

It's an interesting read, and as I said, should be compulsary for all authors who write romances set in Ireland in the pre-English Law period, Roman law is largely not applicable here. There was some inspiration took from some Roman law about property when Christianity entered the country but largely it wasn't used.