Grandparents as Godparents in Early 1800s?

[corinne]

The position now is that we have the names of the two parents, 6 children and 12 godparents, from births spanning 1803-1821, with which to try and reverse engineer if we can get a match to possible births to the parents and siblings, and their parents, back in the 1770-80s. The results of this matching/identification exercise might change if the godparents were grandparents as opposed to uncles/aunts. There is no "perfect" match, it will be a question of deciding if there are any, or one or more reasonable matches 

Rather than trying to "reverse engineer" by using godparents, if you now know the names of 6 children in order, can you make an educated guess of the next generation back by using the typical Irish children naming patterns?  Doesn't always work, but worth a try - first son after fathers father, 2nd son after mothers father, 3rd son after father.. first daughter after mothers mother, second daughter after fathers mother, third daughter after mother...

[jfchaly]

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Since my previous reply I've checked the rules. They were re-issued about 30 years ago. My brother and I may have made acceptable godparents when we were young but wouldn't if we were young now. The only relatives disqualified are parents (biological or adoptive). One modern cleric even recommends grandparents if other suitable candidates are in short supply.
You're probably right about infrequency of confirmation ceremonies. Some people may have been mature adults long before a bishop arrived to confirm them, if ever.
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In Roman Catholic religion a priest can confirm young people, not just a bishop
jfch