divorce

divorce was recognized in Gaelic Irish law as a legal procedure for the dissolution of a marriage contract, permitting either party to remarry. The husband or wife could sue for divorce on grounds, specified in detail in legal material from the early Christian period, which include domestic violence, infertility/sterility, or failure of maintenance. By law, the share each partner was entitled to in the settlement depended on his or her status, what wealth was brought into the union, and the amount of work undertaken by either party for the benefit of the marriage. Divorce was not recognized by the church and, as it was viewed as a private and not a public action, couples separated without recourse to the church courts. After divorce the woman returned to the protection of her family, with which contact had been maintained while in the union. In some cases the family might in fact have instigated the divorce to form a more politically advantageous alliance. Although divorce was freely permitted in Irish customary law, the Gaelic Irish in late medieval times often petitioned the ecclesiastical courts in an attempt to nullify an unwanted divorce or to make a separation legal in accordance with canon law on the grounds of an impediment existing prior to the union.

The frank acceptance of marital breakdown characteristic of Gaelic society was equally unacceptable to the Reformation and Counter‐Reformation churches. By the late 17th century, if not earlier, Irish customary law had ceased to provide an alternative structure of rules and procedures regulating private behaviour. Yet folklore evidence and statistics on household composition from the 19th century alike suggest that informal separations, where a wife who had proved infertile, or whose dowry had not been paid, was sent back to her family, were fairly common practice. Legal divorce was possible only for the rich, by private act of parliament. Divorce by civil process became possible in England from 1857, but proposals that the act should be extended to Ireland were vigorously opposed by both Catholic and Protestant clergy.

Following partition the parliament of Northern Ireland continued to receive divorce bills, and legislation for divorce by civil process was introduced in 1939. In the Irish Free State the introduction of private divorce bills in Dáil Éireann during 1922–3 provoked an immediate outcry, and in 1925 the standing orders were revised to rule out further such bills. The 1937 constitution of Ireland included an unconditional ban on divorce, a prohibition repealed by referendum in 1995.

BNC/ and Bronagh Ní Chonaill