Clare Past Forum

The past couple of days I have been updating some of my family trees courtesy the civil records at irishgenealogy. I may be a bit slow to cotton on but I hadn't realised there was now so much additional info available with the civil indexes, eg both party names and full date of event in the marriage index.
I had a long time ago found the matching records at familysearch for the marriage of John Phillips and Kate Cahill, viz
name: John Philips
registration district: Ennis
event type: MARRIAGES
registration quarter and year: Jan - Mar 1902
volume number: 4
page number: 167
digital folder number: 4199362

name: Kate Cahill
registration district: Ennis
event type: MARRIAGES
registration quarter and year: Jan - Mar 1902
volume number: 4
page number: 167
digital folder number: 4199362

At irishgenealogy I found the following:
Marriage of JOHN PHILIPS and KATE CAHILL
on 14 July 1901
Party 1 Name JOHN PHILIPS
Party 2 Name KATE CAHILL
Date of Event 14 July 1901
Group Registration ID 2504869
SR District/Reg Area Ennis

Can anyone explain the large discrepancy in the date of this event?

The Irish Genealogy Toolkit's guide to "Using Irish Civil Registration Indexes" at http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/ ... dexes.html might be helpful, although the discrepancy in dates is greater than a single quarter:

• From 1845-1863, the marriage indexes (which include only non-Catholic marriages) are arranged alphabetically and are hand-written. After this date, the indexes are typed.
  From 1864 to 1877, the indexes are in alphabetical order in one book per year.
  From 1878 to 1902, the indexes are arranged alphabetically by quarter (ie four quarters to one volume). Unless you are certain of the date of the event, you need to check all four quarters and bear in mind that a birth, marriage or death that occured in one quarter may not have been registered until the following quarter.
  From 1903, the birth indexes (but not the marriage or death indexes) are in alphabetical order in one book per year. The maiden name of the baby's mother is recorded, too, for the first time. This makes searching for a large family of children much easier.
  In 1922, following the division of the island into Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the GRO function was split between GRO Dublin and GRONI Belfast.
  - See more at: http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/ ... ppa7b.dpuf

Having thought about it I realise that the familysearch output records "registration quarter and year", not necessarily date of event. I have seen delays before, most notably December marriages registered in January, but I was thrown by the large separation in this case.
It would seem that for some reason about six months had elapsed before the marriage was registered.
Maybe John and Kate had to think carefully before they did anything - they had only one child, a daughter born in 1910.