In 1940 Ireland, can a woman marry a divorcee from the USA?

Question

My questions arise from a (possible) scenario in Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, published in 1939, and hence pertain to Irish and US divorce law around or before 1939.

I understand that at this time divorce was illegal in Ireland and difficult in the USA.

Prior to the latter decades of the 20th century, divorce was considered to be against the public interest, and civil courts refused to grant a divorce except if one party to the marriage had betrayed the "innocent spouse." Thus, a spouse suing for divorce in most states had to show a "fault" such as abandonment, cruelty, incurable mental illness, or adultery.

• In Ireland at this time, could a woman marry a man who is legally divorced in the USA for one of the above reasons?

Answer 1

Article 41.3.3 of the 1937 Irish Constitution said:

No person whose marriage has been dissolved under the civil law of any other State but is a subsisting valid marriage under the law for the time being in force within the jurisdiction of the Government and Parliament established by this Constitution shall be capable of contracting a valid marriage within that jurisdiction during the lifetime of the other party to the marriage so dissolved.

Until this section was changed by the 2019 amendment.

I can find no source to show how "but is a subsisting valid marriage under the law" was interpreted, but it seems that a person divorced in or prior to 1940 under US law would not have been permitted to marry in Ireland after 1937 until 2019 under this provision.

It should be noted that although Finnegans Wake by James Joyce was published in full in 1939, much of it had been written and published in sections by 1926. It is not at all clear just when it is set. In the 1920s, the constitutional provision quoted above was not yet in effect.