Dublin woman Marianne Crowley is mystified after discovering her wedding ring is not in fact her wedding ring.
She told Joe Duffy's Liveline show about the shock she got on Wednesday night when she went to double check the date of her anniversary.
Marianne asked a friend to read out to her the date engraved on her gold ring, but was surprised by the answer.
"I couldn't remember the date of our anniversary, so I took off the wedding ring because I know it's inscribed. I knew it was September I just couldn't remember the date. So she said it's July '93. I said it's definitely not July '93, I got married in '97.
"I definitely don't remember having two weddings"
"I don't know. I'm very upset because somebody else maybe has my ring, and I have this person's ring. I've never been apart from it. I had the rest of them valued recently, but I didn't send the ring in with that. I never wear it on its own. I always wear the other rings with it. And I definitely don't remember having two weddings."
"It's so similar I never noticed."
"I definitely had the right wedding ring because I had seen the inscription over the years. I have a distant memory of dropping my ring down a hotel sink, I got it back but I don't know which ring I dropped..." - that happened about eight years ago.
Marianne was hoping that another woman somewhere might have had her ring, the inscription on which read F.C. - M.S. 13.09.1997.
Rightful owner
After Joe put out the call asking "who is the Pat that got married on a Saturday in July in 1993?", the question was answered by a woman in the same village, who had since been separated and put what she believed to be her ring in a safe.
Speaking to Liveline today, Marianne said "she got to the safe and lo and behold out comes the wedding ring with the FC MS inscription on it".
As to the reason for the swap, it seems that both women had been friendly with another person in the village who was running cookery classes, and while neither of them remember taking their ring off, they do think that seems to be the most likely explanation.
Marianne was still unsure as to how long it had been since the mix-up occurred, however: "I think her ring is in the safe for around two years, so it's definitely maybe three, four years since I've been wearing the wrong ring".
