Irish Wedding Blessings

Irish wedding blessings are short, and that is the point of them. They were spoken aloud (at a door, over a glass, at the end of a meal) and they had to be memorable enough to be said without a page in hand. What survives is compressed: a single line that carries a whole wish.

The blessings here divide roughly in two. Some are addressed directly to the couple, in the subjunctive that Irish keeps for exactly this purpose, Go maire sibh bhur saol nua, may you enjoy your new life. Others are proverbs about marriage and about people needing one another, offered at a wedding because they are true rather than because they are congratulatory. Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine is the one most often read at Irish weddings, and it is not really about marriage at all.

If you are choosing wording for a card, a speech or a printed piece, read the literal rendering as well as the idiomatic one. Irish blessings tend to say something more concrete than their usual English translations suggest, and the concrete version is often the better line.