HC Deb 29 June 1835 vol 29 cc70-1

Upon the Order of the Day being moved that the Debate should be resumed on the Question that the Roman Catholic Marriages' (Ireland) Bill do pass,

Mr. Finch

said, he felt it incumbent on him to give the measure his opposition.

Lord Morpeth

said, he was desirous of teeing the restrictions at present existing on clergymen in Ireland in respect to marriages removed, therefore he hoped the Bill would be passed.

Colonel Perceval

said, that he should most strenuously oppose the passing of the Bill. He lamented that a measure of this ex parte nature had been brought forward. He was quite aware that a general Marriage Regulation Bill would be of infinite use in Ireland, as well for the Protestants as the Catholics, but this was not that Bill. If the House was only aware of facts that were in his possession, of marriages having been celebrated when the parties were in a state of the greatest drunkenness, and other abuses such as that, he was sure it would pause before it assented to such a Bill as this. He knew an instance in which a man was so drunk when married that he was not aware he had been married till he was told of it on the following day. In the case of another person, a tenant of his own, he thought he was being married to a damsel whom he loved, but his friends, just as the ceremony was about to take place, introduced another female, and he being so intoxicated as not to be able to distinguish the one from the other, was married, and was not aware of the trick till the next day.

Mr. Sheil

said, that by a recent regulation in the Catholic Church, no person could be married except by bans, and that in places of public worship.

Bill passed.