Rosalie Hart Priour Autobiography "Adventures of a Family of Emigrants" with notes and commentary by historian Frank Wagner (indicated in green).
Chapter 3 My mother had a cousin who was an officer in the same station, and while she was on a visit to his wife, she met my father, and it was a case of love at first sight. Before parting, my father asked her if she would be at the fair at Gary [Gorey] the next Saturday. She told him she would.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Elizabeth met Tom Hart at her cousin's (an officer at the Water Guard station) and they made a date for the forthcoming Whitesuntide fair at Gorey. "Love at first sight" is a common enough romantic motif, but seldom realized. The mighty keen of the wife of Arthur Leary, said to be the most moving passage in Irish poetry, expresses the idea.
Thou art my beloved forever! One day I saw you at the market house gable. My eye touched you. My heart loved you. I fled my father with you! Far from my home with you! Never have I repented it!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Her father's name was James Leary, his occupation that of farming and his place of residence was five miles from where the fair was held. Consequently, he always attended the fair to sell or buy cattle, or to dispose of the produce of his farm, and my mother and grandmother accompanied him to purchase such things as they needed for the use of the house, so that my mother knew that she was certain to be there.
On the day of the fair, while shopping she became separated from the rest of the company, and while standing in one of the tents buying some shoes, a young gentleman came up to where she was standing and heard her tell the merchant, "They are too dear." He [the merchant] was asking two shillings more than she had ever paid for this same quality of shoes. The gentleman asked him if they suited her in every other respect. She replied that they did. He paid for them, and purchased some other fancy articles, and presented them to her. She told him she never accepted presents from a stranger, and that she thought he was very impertinent to act as he had done.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The pretense that she was "separated" from the family at the fair, and that rather by mischance they met while she was shopping for shoes are no doubt decorative features introduced by the elderly memoirist as instruction for the youth of her day.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - His answer was, "You certainly remember the officer you met at your cousin's house at dinner last Sunday?" She then remembered him, but still refused to accept any presents from him. He accompanied her to where she expected to meet her friends. There she met her cousin, too, and before long, time was passing so pleasantly that before the close of the fair she told my father that he could speak to her father and, if he could gain his consent, she would marry him. But to gain his consent was a very difficult task, and it was only through the good advice of her cousin that he at last consented to let them marry, on condition that Lord Howth and the parish priest would certify that he was perfectly honorable in every respect.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Tom Hart's reputation doubtless provoked the more or less uncommon precedent of requiring a certificate of good character. It is well-known that parish priests often insisted upon such a certificate before the Banns could be read but this action was frequently the excuse for extortion rather than any moral purpose. Marriages could be solemnized by Catholic priests without the requirement of having a ceremony in a Protestant chapel in 1823. Regrettably, all the parochial archives were destroyed in the 1922 raid of the Irish Republican Army on the National Archives in Dublin.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It only took three or four days to receive the certificate which proved to be perfectly satisfactory. and in two weeks from their first meeting, they were united in the holy bonds of matrimony.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Gorey fair, the Saturday before Whitsuntide (May 18, 1823) was a popular fair in the Wexford countryside. Assuming two weeks elapsed before the wedding took place, the wedding date was June 1, or June 2, 1823.
Chapter 2 - Chapter 4