Find your ancestors in Marriage Licence Bonds; Diocese of Cloyne 1630-1800

This source includes over 9,000 marriages prior to 1800. It is based on an index to all surviving records at the Public Records Office of Dublin prior to 1922 when it was destroyed, this is all the remains of those records.

Marriage Licence Bonds are a little different from formal marriage records. Bishops required that couples entered into a Bond before he would grant a licence for a marriage as an insurance against potential legal action if there were some impediment to the union (e.g. a prior contract). It also facilitated couples who did not wish to have to go through the usual Banns, whereby a notice of the marriage would have to be publicised for three weeks or more before the intended date of marriage. So while it is possible that the proposed marriage in a Licence Bond may not have may not have happened, it is exceptionally unusual.