A COUPLE followed the music to Ballydehob and chose Levis Corner House as the venue for their wedding.
Eddie Sheehan, who is originally from Tipperary, and his bride Denise Miller, had never been to Levis Corner House before but as avid fans of the group Bonny Light Horseman, they knew it was where the band had recorded an album in March 2024.
After poring over photographs of the pub, which has retained its character through four generations, they contacted the owners Joe O’Leary and Caroline O’Donnell and set in train a magical marriage ceremony on Friday April 25th.
‘Having previously got engaged at a Bonny Light Horseman gig in Glasgow, they wanted to do something different for the wedding,’ said Caroline.
‘They were thrilled with all the connections they made but Denise, a Scots woman, couldn’t get over the way they were welcomed by everyone in the village and how locals celebrated their nuptials.
‘Having never been in Ballydehob, or Levis Corner House before, they arrived on the eve of the ceremony and built their own wedding arch and even set up the circle of chairs in the main bar,’ said Caroline.
‘They had a really gorgeous wedding ceremony officiated by Rev Tom Harty, an interfaith minister from Drimoleague.
They walked down to the 12-acrch bridge afterwards with their wedding party of about 12 people, and as they walked down through the village everyone came out of their homes and shops and waved at them for good luck.’
‘Both of them, particularly Denise who has lived in cities all of her life, was not expecting a local response so they were absolutely thrilled with that.’
‘While we had great expectations for the day, and had made many plans, the village of Ballydehob and the venue took it to another level,’ Eddie and Denise told The Southern Star.
The couple each had a tattoo of an intertwined Irish shamrock and a Scottish thistle done in Cork city the day before. The wedding also featured a sand ceremony, where they poured purple sand representing the thistle (the flower of Scotland), and green representing the shamrock, into a vessel, the significance being that when sand mixes, the grains can never again be separated.
The wedding party sang en-route to the 12-arch bridge where their friends engaged in the Celtic tradition of pebble tossing, casting pebbles with good wishes for the couple’s future into the sea.
‘We had close friends from Ireland, Scotland and Copenhagen here for the wedding, none of whom had been to Ballydehob before, and they were blown away by the people and the place,’ said Eddie.
