Irish funerals are a part of Irish life. To an outsider, I’m sure, they seem strange. I’ve written about them before and it is often said the only difference between a funeral and a wedding is one less drunk. Oh, and no cameras.
The very first I was brought to was of an old man whose family had recently moved here from the west. Days before he died, a keener* had been sent for from Mayo. The sight of a body at the age of four coupled with the keener’s performance frightened me off and I flatly refused to be taken to any more for years, which was much to my parents’ embarrassment - you see, mourning families may not remember who was at their loved one’s funeral, but they will never, ever, ever forget who wasn’t.
So important is it to make an appearance, to show one’s face, that we even offer two opportunities: funeral-lite the night before the burial and funeral-full that day. Funeral-lite is quick, with the minimum of ceremony. It suits people who can’t take time off work the following day and afterwards there is ample time for those gathered to form queues and shake hands with the bereaved. Howya, eh, eh, howya. Eh, sorry for your trouble is responded to with thanks for coming, eh, eh, thanks. Ad nauseum. That you can’t remember the family members’ names, nor they yours, is irrelevant - they will remember you if they didn’t see you.
Funeral-full is a much more lavish affair, though generally less well attended, which is lucky for the family as, while once they were expected to lay on soup and sandwiches, or soup-sandwiches, these days a full sit-down meal is the norm. The graveside also sees more howya, eh, eh, howya, eh, sorry for your trouble and thanks for coming, but not much, which again is lucky for the family who are either pissed off with it at that stage, or having neglected to remove their rings the night previously, are in need of surgery on crushed and swollen fingers.
While the tradition of keener has died out, some of the older families still hold a wake. The starter pack. A third opportunity to shake hands, although those who do attend usually partake of funeral-lite and funeral-full too - the professional funeral goers who have replaced the keeners. I can’t tell you anything more about wakes - the trauma inflicted on me as a four-year-old has led me to avoid them since.
In fact, I avoid most funerals. All breeds of them. Sugar-free. Full-fat. I hate the he was a great man crap. The don’t speak ill of the dead fear. Dying doesn’t change what a person was. The only different between a live bollix and a dead bollix is one is dead.
I hate shite from the priests who offer their brand of religion as support for the family. The family that doesn’t believe a word of it. I hate the professional funeral goers that knew the deceased well - they met them in the shop the odd morning.
I have buried both parents. Both with all the religious pomp. Because that’s what they wanted, not me. I merely did what they had asked of me. (I know of a young man who was recently cremated as he had asked. His parents buried his ashes at a second ceremony, not spread them at the Devil’s Bit as he asked. That galled me). I hated having to shake hands with people I didn’t know. I felt like standing up and saying anybody here who isn’t a good friend of the family please fuck off. I came close but was held back by the, more stable, sibling. I hated people asking if there was anything they could do - yeah, shag off, I don’t know you. I welcomed the support of close friends, more so before and after, the funerals but I hated the intrusion of strangers who felt they had to make an appearance.
I go to the funerals of people I was close to. People whose family I am also close to. If I was close to someone, but not their family, I stay away because otherwise I would be in the way - I would be just another stranger mouthing rubbish and showing my face.
For this, I am a continual source of amazement in the locality. I didn’t see ya at so-and-so’s funeral, Primal. I wasn’t there. Were ya sick? No. I just didn’t go - I don’t know the family. But you knew so-and-so himself. Shur ya used have a pint with him. I knew him. I may have chatted with him in the pub but we weren’t close. I’m talking to you now and we both have pints in our hands but I won’t be at your funeral either. For fek sake, you could’ve at least shown yer face.
A neighbour is being buried as I write. I can name two of his brothers but couldn’t tell one from the other. The other brothers and sisters I’ve never met. Obviously I’m not there. And for the next month or more all I will get is I didn’t see ya at so-and-so’s funeral, Primal.
* A professional mourner. From the Irish, caoin : to cry.
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Very true Primal. The folk who ask ‘was anything they could do’ are not friends. Real friends don’t need to ask because they have it done already!
At my grandfather’s funeral we (the family) were given a few minutes alone in the funeral home before the coffin was closed and removed to the church. All you could hear were auld lads laughing and joking right outside the door, waiting for the coffin to be brought out so they could piously hang their heads and trot off to the church after it. I had to be physically restrained from going outside and roaring at them to fuck the fuck off if they weren’t going to show a bit of respect.
I don’t really have any comment to make; I just thought I’d show my face.
Of course you don’t have to give presents at funerals either and no one falls out because they haven’t been invited.
As someone with more than a passing interest in this subject I want to say first you are dead right!
(I really didn’t intend that pun). There is much about our funeral traditions that irks me not least of which is the phenomenon you have already mentioned of ‘funeral chasers’, led by the local TD’s and other regulars. Most often this breed are to be seen at the Reception of Remains/Funeral Lite or indeed the ultra-lite version at the mortuary chapel where a 60 second circuit seems to provide the necessary fix! I had an experience recently where a early arrival at a funeral reception asked me what family the deceased had! I asked him why he was there if he didn’t know even that much about the deceased family. Funnily enough I didn’t get an answer! 
The other thing that really gets to me is the provisionality that funerals impose on the rest of life. Of course as a clergyman I am particularly subject/vulnerable to this but I do wonder why we have to be so slavish to a ritual which sees the deceased brought to the church sometimes 24 hours or less after the event (no matter what else is going on in peoples lives) and the funeral the next day. I sometimes wonder whether we care more about the dead than we do the living! It sounds callous but the dead are dead and our focus needs to be on the living! It is not as if we live in the Middle East where climatic factors dictate rapid burial and in my experience enbalming is more and more common obviating the need for any mad rush to get the deed done. Sometimes it appears to me an almost indecent haste and I think there is a lot to be said for the UK tradition of 1 to 2 weeks allowing time for family members who are abroad to get home without paying huge fares and allowing the family and clergy to prepare properly for the event.
Re the clergy and the ’shite’ preached at such events - yes sometimes that is true though I personally do try to be honest about people in the words I say - but remember that its not an easy task for clergy negotiating the mindfield of emotions that surround many funerals. There are two events in my work as priest/clergyman that still cause me to sweat and they are weddings and funerals. In the case of the former you might get a second go but in the case of funerals you only get one shot!
My Da’s funeral seemed to go on for days and days what with the lite and full fat versions and a sit down meal and endless streams of people I didn’t know from Adam shaking my hand. All I wanted to do was go off and be on my own for a while. I thought it would never end.
Grannymar - So true. In fact, real friends never use the standard phrases - they just say what comes naturally, just like they help without having to ask.
Caro - See. That’s the damn professional funeral goers again. They have no place being there at all. I closed both boxes on my own (everyone else was scared) but I couldn’t hear anything from outside. But if I did, and without the stable sibling to restrain me, I would have come out and done what you wanted too.
Eolaí - At least you showed your face. That’s the main thing. Thanks for coming.
Mary - Shiny metal thing whacked firmly on the end that’s not pointy! Why not make the whole affair invitation only? My last day out is already planned - Maguire & Patterson job and no church etc. - maybe I’ll draw up a guest list too.
Stephen - Fek ya! You’re making me work here. Anyway, right, where do I start? Ok.
I completely forgot funeral-ultralite. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe it’s the wake of the noughties - the starter pack.
I’m giggling over the guy asking about the deceased’s family. I don’t know why - it’s an old joke seeing as it happens at every funeral. Maybe the old jokes really are the best. In the previous post on funerals I mentioned above, wee Conor made a comment about a woman at his father’s funeral: “she had actually never even met my Da but was there ‘representing’ her brother who was busy”. And late last year, a mickey-relation of mine drove from Tipperary to Derry to attend the funeral of, now get this, a man whose wife had been at school with her sister who now lives abroad.
The express funeral phenomenon, I haven’t thought about. Personally I’d prefer to get it over and done with, but I appreciate your point about time for travel and preparation.
I’ve read some of the ’shite’ you preach* and I have to say I enjoyed it. In particular, the Christmas ’shite’. At the CoI funerals I’ve been to it was always clear the druid knew the deceased. Maybe that’s because of the smaller, tighter community or that CoI druids are closer to their clients. At the RC ones, the druid does some hasty research and invariably gets something wrong or has so little material he falls back on quoting the bible. At a recent one, the deceased had buried his wife 10 weeks previously. On the way in I wasn’t the only one commenting that the druid would have an easy one - family research still fresh in his memory plus the wife’s recent passing to pad it out - his script was written for him.
*For those who don’t know, Stephen posts some of his sermons on his blog.
Conorín - You snook in there unnoticed. Cheeky. Yeah, I hated that too. But I did manage to slip away. Too often probably but I just couldn’t take the bull.
I don’t really do funerals I must admit. Here generally funerals also have phases which start off with a few close family members and friends at a very small service at the morturary where the body is cremated and then a memorial which is a huge bash generally held in a large bar and where everyone who’s even heard the fellow’s name seems to turn up and has a damn good knees up followed by a smaller, more friendly weekend picnic somewhere in the middle of nowhere where the ashes of said deceased are then scattered for the wind to lay and rest.
- It works for us, but people don’t like to call them funerals at all, but a ‘celebration of life’!
Sneezy, I’m in Dub! Email me!
White girl - Now that system I could
livedie with. Except for the bit about not calling them funerals - that sort of sounds wrong - overly PC; overly sensitive; a denial; I don’t know, just not right.Sam - Consider yourself mailed.
Interesting post Primal and one that struck a chord with me. So much is about appearances. I still remember when my granny died (a Mayo woman from near Westport) I was only 13 but remember thinking the wake was a sham and having spent every summer there since I could remember, complete strangers arrived to ‘pay respect’ and drink a freebie whiskey or two or more. Same said strangers were nowhere to be seen when she was in hospital for 2+ years previous. Not that I expected them to be, but don’t show up when she’s ‘brown bread’ and pretend you care! When I pass from this mortal coil, the exit service is gonna be VIP members only, velvet rope! RSVP now!
I love the title of the post, I have to say before anything else.
Likewise I won’t be at yours, well whoever goes first!
Never been to a funeral in my life. I suspect I will ever attend to a funeral unless I am physically dragged.
The only dead loved one I have seen was my dog after it was hit by a truck and was dead on the metal bed in the vet hospital 5 minutes before I arrived. Much of what I remember of her and my days together is stained by the image of her dead self, that one last look and also the feeling of momentary anger that she died and left me.
I refuse to see anyone dead because I want to remember them as who they were when alive, I refuse to see anyone in an urn in ash form or being lowered into the ground. I still want my last memory with them to be when they were alive.
Escapism? Maybe. In my culture funerals do not have that kind of strong traditions, so I can’t compare but I completely understand what you are saying and wouldn’t hold it against you if you don’t come to my funeral, having only met in blogsphere and exchanged a few comments!
Primal - ‘denial’ is a Kenyan speciality!
Quicky - ‘Appearances’ is what this country was always about. Some things are changing but not a lot. People still baptise their children because people would talk if they didn’t and not because of the reasons they prattle out, like for my parents’ sake; to get a place in a catholic school; the child can make their own mind up when they’re older. The same with funerals - people would talk if they didn’t attend.
What’s the procedure in Buenos Aires?
Gayé - Most attending an Irish funeral never see the body. Just the coffin. So it’s not as if they are saying a final goodbye.
Okay, we’ll go for that: Neither of us goes to the other’s funeral.
White girl - Let’s hope the Kenyan leaders don’t deny agreeing this week’s deal.
re: “What’s the procedure in Buenos Aires?” - Primal
It’s 90% catholic here and big chunk of that practicing (mass, confession, etc..) From what I’ve observed, there is much less focus on ‘keeping up appearances’
Religion takes a more back seat approach and rarely gets shoved down your throat. No ‘Angelus’ at 6pm on the national channel. Rarely hear of a Bishop airing his views in the papers.
In the city, it’s more of a take it leave it approach, which is how it should be. In the rural areas it would be more conservative. Thankfully I haven’t had to go to a funeral here yet. I’m hoping the same ‘take it leave it approach’ applies.
The bodies are just meat sacks when the soul leaves, just leave me out in a field to feed the worms.
It’s a pity you can’t make matter disappear, in some shape or form we still exist and carry on and on and on and on…
Quicky - Right. I’m on my way. Sounds like I’d love BA.
Young Knudsen - They’d choke on you.
Gayé - A different shape and form results in a different entity - the original is no longer. As humans we, myself included, may retain memories but once we are gone, so too are our memories. The memories of someone lasts no longer than the next generation. Once that generation has past, there may exist memories of memories but that is all.
Anyway, too deep for a Sunday morning. I’m off to buy part of the newspaper and relax for a while.