Children were baptized very soon after birth.

I have found few images of Irish infants and none of baptisms. The above image from the London Graphic, is very interesting. It is intitled A VACINATION STATION IN CONNAUGHT, IRELAND and is dated December 18, 1880. Unfortunately, the seller did not have the article that went with the picture.

An Irish Village Wedding

A young groom leading his bride home, 1840s

SRAW-BOYS: An Ancient Custon still Observed in IRELAND, THE GRAFIC, JULY 8, 1911

"From time immemorial a strange wedding custom has been observed in the West of Ireland, young men- known as the Straw-Boys- who have not been invited to the ceremony, and who care to present themselves in the disguise shown in our picture, being allowed to join in the festivities and control all the arrangements for a couple of hours."

Drawn by E. A. Morrow.

Straw-boys activity occurred mostly in the west of Ireland. Groups of revelers wearing pointed top hats, masks, and skirts of straw arrived uninvited at wakes and weddings where they sang, danced, played music and games and generally performed acts of buffoonery often of a risque sexual nature. They were welcomed because it was believe that they brought good luck to the families involved. The entertainment value was probably considerable. The masks and outlandish attire was supposed to hide the identity of the individual and allow complete freedom from his inhibitions. However, I would imagine that in the small rural environments where these festivities were most popular everyone would have pretty much known everyone else and this was a case of who was kidding whom.

Until 1972 when a law was passed that both men and women could not wed until the age of 16, Irish females could legally be wed at age 12 and males at age 14. While most women married around the age of 20, pre-famine brides were often younger.

The following discription of the death of one of the Kilmartin sons is taken from the novel The Famine by Liam O'Flaherty (1979) which was set during the great famine of the mid 1800s in the west of Ireland. Liam O'Flaherty was born on the Aran Islands in 1896.

The sick man, who had been wasting to a skeleton for the past month, had at last reached his end. Even so, he found it hard to died. After the last rites of the church had been administered and he had resigned himself to his fate, he struggled on through the night, fighting grimily. Dawn was breaking before he died. The copper coins were placed on his eyelids and the death wail began in the house. Kate Heron took charge of the mourning.

She led Maggie for the death-bed to the hearth and put her sitting on a stool in the chimney corner. Then she herself squatted on the floor before the fire, surrounded by a group of neighbour women, who drew their skirts over their heads. Kate sprinkled ashes on the women's heads and began to recite the death chant. She bent forward until she was almost prone, with her hands stretched towards the fie. Her body, forward from the hips, then broke into movement, miming the tortures of the human soul, as it struggles to break free form its prison in the human body. Her back twisted slowly, like an animal with a broken hip dragging itself along the ground. Her hands and arms also twisted, as if she were kneading breads in the air. She raised her shoulders as her hand reached outward, urging forth the spirit, miming the act of birth.

Her chant was mostly an inarticulate cadence, while the other women, rocking themselves, now and again uttered prayers to God, begging him to accept the departed soul. At times the old woman's voice imitated the death rattle. At times it rose to wild shriek of triumph, during which she plunged forward, seized ashes in her hands and scattered them towards the open door, as was customary, to exorcise evil spirits that barred the soul's flight to Paradise. At last she stood up straight from her knees paused for a moment as if listening and then thrust her arms above her head, crying with great fervour:

"God of glory! Have mercy now and open your gates."
"Amen!" said the other women.

Thereupon they all lay prone on the ground for some time with their heads covered, until Kate Heron rose and said in a normal tone:
"We"ll go now and lay out the corpse"

The corpse was laid out in the corner of the kitchen where the pigs' bed had been. For that an extra table had to be borrowed from a neighbour, together with forms of seating the visitors. By the time all had been prepared, Martin returned from the village with the pipes and tobacco. The old man sat near the head of the corpse and filled the pipes, which he passed around among the morners. The wake had begun. As people entered the kitchen, they blessed the house in a whisper, knelt before the corpse in prayer and then sat down for a while. The men smoked a little . They talked in low voices about ordinary things. It was contrary to the etiquette to refer to the cause of their presence. When leaving, however, they waited in the yard until they met one of the family, when they tendered regret in a formal manner. It was all very ceremonious. In the afternoon, Tom Gill, the cooper, began to make the coffin on the rock where the oats had been threshed. Then the keg of whiskey was broached and the wake became livelier. By nightfall the house as crowed and there was even an atmosphere of gaiety. That was proper and according to custom.

HARPERS WEEKLY MARCH 15, 1873

Peasant Funeral in the Mam Turk Mountains of Connemara Ireland