Catholics pretending to be Protestants in Ireland?

[Sinann]

I don't think we are talking about the same thing.
The question was
Did they pretend to be Protestants to cover up their child out of wedlock?

How would pretending to be Protestants cover up the fact their child was illegitimate?

People pretended to be married, pretending the child was younger so it appeared to be born after the marriage but I have never heard of any one pretending to be Protestants to hid an illegitimate birth.

[Blue70]

Do you have the child out of wedlock's baptism? Was it a RC or C of I baptism? Could there have been a problem with the local RC priest and the family went to a C of I church and had the child baptised there instead?


Blue

[Ruskie]

It sounds like a simple case of a family story being wrong. 
It's a recurring theme.

[heywood]

Wouldn't it be good if Danny boy came back and explained a bit more. 

[Sinann]

It sounds like a simple case of a family story being wrong. 
It's a recurring theme.

More than likely,
and if this happened

Wouldn't it be good if Danny boy came back and explained a bit more. 

we might be able to figure it out once and for all.

[Dannyboy20]

Better 5 years late than never! They were both Catholics but had a child of wedlock...the Catholic Church would not marry them...so they indeed were married in a Church of Ireland ceremony.

[shanreagh]

This still sounds a little odd, perhaps a story misheard or misinterpreted. 

I have never heard of an RC church refusing to marry a couple because they had a child before marriage.  I have not heard of a RC church refusing to baptise the child of RC parents whether married or not.  Perhaps one of the parties was not actually a Catholic and it was a case of the RC church not wanting to marry a couple if one would not give up their faith on marriage.  My RC grandmother was excommunicated from the RC church when marrying my Anglican grandfather. On his death she was received back into the church.  None of the 9 children were brought up RC. 

Here in NZ anyway those who had religious problems often were married at a Registry Office. 

Have you checked the two census for religion details?  What did they say?
My other gt grandfather was Presbyterian and he married in and had his children baptised in CoI churches in Co Londonderry but was buried from the Presbyterian church here in NZ. 

Were the children brought up Church of England/Ireland? 

[Dannyboy20]

I'm going purely off of what I have heard from my mother...they were both Catholics, on the census too....but they were for some reason married in a Church of Ireland Church in Dublin...the children were raised in that faith as far as I know, with classic Irish Catholic names...they were all born and raised in County Wicklow...believe me it puzzles me too. My grandmother married my grandfather a Catholic, a devout Catholic untill she died, buried as one too.

[heywood]

Welcome back 

Do you have their marriage?
Do you have the birth registration of the child in question?

Would you like to share their names with us?

Perhaps they married in C o I because they somehow wanted to cover up the birth of their child prior to the marriage. The child might have been presented for Baptism with them posing as a married couple.