Irish age of consent query for Catholic and civil marriage

[HarrisonHart]

I have a marriage that I am comfortable occurred but the direct descendants are questioning it due to the age of the female at the time.

Here is the story as I see it.
- A farming couple marry, have 1 child, wife dies while child is an infant.
- The then 23 year old male widower, marries a then 11 or 12 year old female who is a daughter of an adjoining farm.
- Despite marrying in 1864 or 65, they don't have their first child together until the year the female will turn 16.

- Incidentally (or not) the family of the then 23 year old widower (and his second wife) still own the same land, and they also now own the land of the adjoining farm.

Evidence:
I have the civil marriage record from rootsireland and the catholic marriage record too.
It is the right townland. 
The male is stated as a widower. 
The only issue is the civil record is stated as 20 Nov 1864 and the catholic record states 15 Nov 1865.  At the moment I think this is a typo on rootsirelands behalf.
The father of the girl, on the civil marriage record, is the same name as the father on the girls baptism record (which I also have from rootsireland).  The first birth between the couple that I can find is 1869, then 1871, then 1873, then 1876.  So they married in either 1864 or 65 (when the girl was either 1 month from being 12, or 1 month from being 13), and didn't start a family till 1869 (first child baptised when the girl was 15 years 4 months and the same year she would turn 16).

The descendants of the marriage say they are unconvinced the catholic church would have accepted such a marriage, and think the female must have been from elsewhere.

What sources are out there to prove that such a marriage would have occurred, to explain to the descendants?

[taramcdsmall]

Hi There

I can't say that I've ever come across a 12 / 13 year old getting married.

Where have you gotten that this was her age ?

Can you give us names, details so that we can check ?

Tara

[Elwyn Soutter]

I don’t think the law in Ireland specified a minimum age until the 20th century.

In my general experience of marriages in Ireland in the latter part of the 19th century if someone appears to be as young as 12 there is usually an error with one of the dates. However, having said that in, “The population of Ireland 1750-1845” by KH Connell, Oxford 1950, there are many examples of girls marrying as young as 12, even in the 1830s. (Can’t find anything specific to the 1860s).  The source for girls marrying at 12 was given as HD Inglis “Ireland in 1834” publ 1835 i.247.  On Page 51 of Connell’s book:

“In the Dingle district, where marriage was at an unusually early age, ‘fourteen and thirteen are common ages for the marriage of girls; fifteen is not considered at all an early age for marriage; and there are instances of their having been contracted at so early an age as twelve.”

Page 52: “A Kerry priest told of how he had married girls of twelve to thirteen, and at this moment there is a married woman in Templemore who had just had a child at the age of fourteen. A woman in the parish of Killarney had two children before the age of fifteen.”

[HarrisonHart]

Here is a link to their civil and church marriage plus sarahs birth (well, I believe this to be the case)

https://harrisonmccrystal.wordpress.com/2015/06/17/james-sarah-marriage/

[HarrisonHart]

Oh I made an error with regard to the placement of the farmlands.  In my original post I said the land was adjoining - this is incorrect.  The adjoining land belonged to the father of my James's first wife who died.  That land is now owned by the descendants of my james, in addition to their original farm.

A cousin has marked out on google maps, the land that was held by my James's family (mccrystal), and the land that was held by sarahs father and another man of the same surname.  I will upload the image in a minute.  The only things I can think of are that a) sarahs family converted to catholicism in 1853, and she was baptised then, even though she was not a newborn, or b) there is another family we are yet to find with another sarah.

Still, the fact they married in 1865ish and didn't have their first child till 1869 makes me more convinved that sarah was very young at the time of the marriage.

[taramcdsmall]

Do you have James and Sarah on the 1901 Census ?

Tara

[taramcdsmall]

Is this them ?

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Londonderry/Gulladuff/Drummuck/1544781/

Tara

[taramcdsmall]

Is this Sarah in 1911 ?

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Londonderry/Gulladuff/Drummuck/610895/

Tara

[taramcdsmall]

The only death I can see for a Sarah McCrystal in the County is in 1918 ~ born 1842 which roughly ties in with the census !

Again, is this her or am I way off ?

Tara