mac Peirce) family,[1] as other Meath and Dublin names, Monasteroris, Carrickoris, and Ballycoruss, should have shown him.
He heard that the Telltown marriages were celebrated in the Luganeany hollow in Pagan times; “a short distance to the South of this a wall (now a ‘ditch’) was erected and in this was a gateway, in which there was a hole, large enough to admit of a human hand. This was the spot at which marriages were celebrated according to the odd manner following—A number of young men went into the hollow to the North side of the wall, and an equal number of young women to the South side of the wall, which was so high as to prevent them from seeing the men. One of the women put her hand through the hole in the gate and a man took hold of it on the other side, being guided in his choice only by the appearance of the hand. The two who thus joined hands by blind chance were obliged to live together for a year and a day, at the expiration of which they appeared at the Rath of Telton and, if they were not satisfied with each other, they obtained a ‘deed of separation’ and were entitled to go to Leganeany again to try their good fortune for the ensuing year—whence the phrase ‘they got a Tailltean marriage,’ i.e. they took each other for nine (sic) months. The natives of Telton think there was a great deal of fair play in this marriage . . . whether the tradition be right or wrong.”
Now this elaborate description is most closely corroborated, as we shall see, by the Book of Aicill and other ancient law codes of Ireland, unpublished and nearly unknown to scholars when O’Donovan heard this strange tale from the illiterate peasantry. It revolted O’Donovan’s prejudices; he, naturally, doubted that the ascetic Irish Church could have permitted such an abuse, and therefore his testimony of the local tradition is above suspicion. He heard the “fairs” were suppressed 30 years before,
- ↑ Dr. Joyce, “Ir. Names of Places,” ser. ii. chap. vii. p. 142.
