This article examines the conflicts between international and domestic marriage and divorce laws in Ireland. The article explains how Ireland’s piecemeal divorce laws developed incrementally, resulting in a radically different treatment of divorces taking place in EU countries versus divorces taking place elsewhere. The article also explains the human rights consequences of not recognizing divorces based on habitual residences, and outside the common law. These difficulties regarding divorce recognition extend to marriage, resulting the creation of an unclear and problematic new test for defining refugee marital status. The article suggests that recent developments, like the introduction of the test, have confused more than clarified, and the common law would be better served by developing the existing jurisprudence. The article argues that the court needs to modernize this conflict of laws in the face of a more internationally mobile society, and recent case law has not adequately reflected this international reality.