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Story Notes
Imagine, 10 brides all wearing the same dress?
One Cavan family can: the O'Reilly’s.
Ten women in that family have worn the same wedding-dress, over the past 50 years. Beginning with Maura in 1972 and most recently with Síle in 2022.
It’s full-length, long-sleeved, white; made of small squares of crocheted flowers. And, it suits everyone: tall brides, small brides, thinner brides, fuller-figure brides.
The secret is in its design. The squares of crochet can be shrunk or stretched to any size.
It looks intricate but it’s not delicate. It’s been trampled in the family farmyard by calves, had tea spilled on it and been soaked in an outdoor bath (good for keeping it white).
Although, it’s originally a 70s-type dress, each bride has adapted it to her own style and time.
And, as you’d imagine, the brides are all very different.
"This dress has been worn by virgins, a mother of two, and a girl who was 5-months pregnant. I call it The Feminist Dress."
So, says Siobhán, one of the brides. Her mother, Sheila made the dress, and she was a feminist. Sheila and her husband, PJ believed in equal opportunities for their daughters and granddaughters.
As a full-time farmer and homemaker, Sheila found expression through the local Killeshandra ICA guild which organised political debates, information talks as well as practical classes and competitions.
Over the years, on the local ICA St. Patrick’s Day float, Sheila’s famous wedding-dress was central to the display.
And, on wedding days, in the O’Reilly family, the dress is central to proceedings.
The dress is cleaned and dried to the size and shape of the bride. The bride wears an under dress, which is sometimes stitched to the outer crochet dress.
Each of the flowers in the crochet squares is pinned down to hold their shape. It takes 40 minutes to remove all those pins, just before the bride goes up the aisle.
And if the groom doesn’t praise the dress in his speech? A chorus of 'mad O’Reilly aunties’ will berate him from the tables.
Then, after the meal and the first dance, the bride has to rush upstairs to be taken out of the dress by some of those aunties – sometimes unstitched from it – so it doesn’t become damaged during the dancing.
Siobhán says that although the dress is 50 years old and is still being worn, it’s not an ‘heirloom’.
"An heirloom is something whose history you look back on. We all look forward to the future of the dress."
And the future brides to wear it? The aunties have their eyes on some of the nieces and granddaughters in the family but, at the moment, they’re well under marrying age.
Although, as one of the brides who wore it recalls, she had decided on the dress before there was ever a man in her life!
Produced by Ronan Kelly
First broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1, 2PM, Saturday 23rd September 2023
An Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One - the home of Irish radio documentaries
Story Credits