ANNA KAVANAGH AND Diarmuid Cunniffe were married at Castlemagner church by Fr Micheál Ó Loinsigh, of Midleton, Co Cork, who conducted the service in Irish and English. Siobhán Oliver sang Nella Fantasiaand the bride's grandmother read John O'Donoghue's reflection On Marriage.
“As spring unfolds the dream of the earth
May you bring each other’s hearts to birth . . .”
The bride grew up in Donnybrook, Dublin 4, where her father, Bill Kavanagh, has been a GP for more than 30 years. She went to Muckross Park College, and studied arts at UCD. She later completed an MA in social science, specialising in health research. She is now working for the National Youth Council as research and policy officer.
Diarmuid grew up in Kilternan, and is the son of Deirdre and Michael Cunniffe. He has one brother, Ronan, who travelled from Australia for the wedding. He attended St Benildus College in Stillorgan, and studied arts at UCD before pursuing a law degree in Blackhall Place. He now works as a solicitor in the IFSC.
The couple met when they were both on an Erasmus year in Paris. Though they were both UCD students at the time and had some friends in common, they met for the first time in an Irish bar in Paris. They’re both sporty and do a lot of swimming, skiing, hiking and cycling together. It was during a skiing trip to Colorado that they became engaged on the cusp of 2008.
Anna, whose mother Anne comes from Mallow, had visited Longueville House as a young girl and says she had always dreamed of getting married there. Diarmuid was also taken by the setting and history of the house. “One of our favourite memories of the day was driving up the avenue, my parents in the car behind beeping like mad (so much so that Dad’s car horn was out of action for a few weeks after the wedding) and the sun beaming down and all our friends and family on the lawn. There were Sinatra sounds from local jazzman Len McCarthy. Aisling and William Callaghan and the staff went to every length to give us a day to remember,” says Anna.
Corkman Timmy McCarthy got all the guests going with some Irish music and step dancing in the cellar. The Good Guys band followed, and kept everyone on the dance floor until the small hours.
The couple went to Sicily for their honeymoon, stopping first in Rome, where the bride’s aunt, Sr Katherine O’Flynn, had organised for them to attend Mass at St Peter’s. They live in Blackrock, Co Dublin, and cycle to work every day.