The aim of this book has been to understand the logistics of heterosexual marriage in Ireland, particularly among the lower and middle classes from 1660 to 1925. Our starting point was the establishment of a legal chronology of marriage in Ireland during the period, and the identification of the key developments in the regulation of marriage within the main Christian denominations of the Church of Ireland, Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholicism. This was not a simple task as, throughout the period, there was considerable confusion and uncertainty in both church and state over the definition of a valid marriage. Parliamentary legislation reflected an ambivalent attitude towards marriage ceremonies not celebrated by Church of Ireland clergymen and this legal uncertainty was not fully removed until the later decades of the nineteenth century.