Marriage Licence Bonds 1623 - 1866

If your ancestors marry in Ireland between 1623 and 1866, they may have been married by licence rather than by banns. Marriage licences were granted, on payment of a fee, by the ecclesiastical courts of the Church of Ireland. The original records were destroyed in the Public Record Office explosion of 1922, but indexes survive, and record Protestant marriages as far back as 1623. The indexes will give you names of spouses, year of marriage and diocese.