Ohio Families

Elizabeth (Feran) Brennan was almost certainly the "vestry woman" who was a witness to the marriage that became known as the Yelverton Marriage Case.

Charles Yelverton, a Protestant aristocrat from Cork and Maria Theresa Longworth, a Catholic from England, were married at old Killowen Chapel on 15 August 1857 by the local priest Bernard Mooney. They requested that their be no witnesses and apparently there weren't any. In 1858 Charles married again in Edinburgh, Scotland. When Maria went to court to establish her rights as Charles' wife she produced a certificate of marriage from the priest naming Elizabeth Brennan and Richard Sloan as witnesses.

The court in Dublin ruled in favor of Maria but on appeal Charles eventually won in the House of Lords. One issue involved was that at the time a marriage of a Protestant and a Catholic by a Catholic priest was not considered valid. The Yelverton case eventually led to the 1870 Matrimonial Causes and Marriage Law (Ireland) Amendment Act, 1870, which made such a marriage lawful.

In 2020, a local historian from Killowen knew that this Brennan family were church caretakers at the time, which led to identifying this Elizabeth Brennan as the "vestry lady." Information was also provided by a descendant of Elizabeth.