Irish forced to marry abroad

Conclusive evidence of the recession arrived this week, when figures published by the CSO revealed that just under 4,000 Irish couples (of a total 19,000) have been forced to tie the knot abroad so far this year.

‘It’s cheaper,’ said Deirdre Grant, of Irish Weddings Abroad.

Penurious couples have had recourse Sorrento, Rome, Cyprus, Malta and the Algarve in order to make their vows in a cost effective ceremony.

‘We’ve had this problem before. In the Eighties and the Fifties, Irish couples had to postpone marriage because the cost of housing was too high. Something similar plagued us during the nineteenth century,’ said celebrity historian Micheál O Siochrú.

‘Now the reality is that the actual cost of a wedding is prohibitive. Without these cheap foreign alternatives the marriage rate would drop dramatically, which could result in the kind of fall off in population that hasn’t been seen since the time of Cromwell.’