The Ancient Irish Death Ritual Banned By The Catholic Church

Comments · 601

• LI

  @lisabissett7810 · 10 months ago

  My Dad died in Dublin 7 years ago.  He died in a big Dublin hospital on a cancer ward that kept the windows closed at all times.  After he passed the nursing staff put him in his dressing gown, made him look comfortable in bed, they covered the side tables in white sheets and put a lamp on beside his bed and removed all hospital equipment and most importantly when we came back into the room, they had opened his window to release his soul.  He stayed in our home from Friday until his funeral Monday morning, the entire weekend the house was fille,  and many stories of his life shared.  Each of the grandchildren wrote letters to him that were placed in the coffin.  My brother in law from county Clare helped dig his grave.  So many traditions still alive in an Irish death.

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• BL

  @blindknitter · 10 months ago (edited)

  We keened at my Grandads funeral. It was horrifying and seemed to come out of our guts. That was 1989. Nobody paid us, by the way. It was all the granddaughters.

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• PA

  @patriciam.1204 · 10 months ago (edited)

  When my husband died  here in Ireland, a few years ago. he came home for 2 days and nights, and people came from all around to tell stories and have tea and food, the body was never left alone and his sons slept next to the coffin for two nights. Mirrors were covered and the tv was covered. (With white sheets) Candles were burned. It is in the big cities where they go to funeral homes. It was a huge comfort to us to see how many came to show respect. The coffin was closed just before they went to the church for the funeral.

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• CA

  @cath1952 · 10 months ago

  I'm 73 years old. When I was in university in Galway, I remembered students from Connamara speaking of keening at the funerals of their grandparents especially. We never batted an eye at that "respect" which was presented to older people at that time. I'm speaking from 1970/75.

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• BR

  @brianmahoney3256 · 11 months ago (edited)

  An open coffin, kept overnight, at home, is still very common in Ireland. I attended an uncle and my grannies funerals recently and this was the way it was done. A bit of a party and sing song, with the open coffin in the corner of the room.<br>Coffins can be surprisingly heavy!!! A great honour to carry the coffin.

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• CO

  @convinceme6676 · 10 months ago

  As an ex-pat yank who now resides in Ireland, my mother passed away in Massachusetts and my sister had the wake in her home ( she had checked with local laws and funeral parlors to make sure it was permissible). She was laid out in the living room, a window was left slightly ajar to let her spirit escape, all the mirrors in the house were covered ( I found out later by her oncologist, that this was also a Jewish tradition that guided you to focus on the deceased instead of yourself) and that someone stayed with the body through the night ( I volunteered because my brother in-law had a nice collection of whiskey AND I loved the idea of spending the last few moments in the presence of my mom).<br>To a person, there was nothing but amazement at how wonderful the celebration and respect was for the person who had passed away.

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• BA

  @bajubner · 10 months ago

  It&apos;s interesting to hear how foreign a lot of these Irish customs seem to Dan and Maddy in the context of their own lives. I&apos;m from Newfoundland, where Irish heritage and blood still runs through almost every aspect of daily life, and all of these things are so common for us. As a child I was brought to wakes and funerals with not so much as a thought of it being inappropriate or unusual. My nan made the decision to leave the hospital and die in her own home, and all of us stayed in her house to be nearby when the moment came. It was beautiful and such a privilege to be with her. Similarly when my pop died a few years later, albeit in the hospital, we stayed at his bedside the whole time. You could tell the moment was coming, and as sad as it was both times, I wouldn&apos;t have traded the experiences for anything. The wakes afterward, for any of my family who have passed, are so essential to the way we grieve here. Consoling one another, telling stories and looking at old photos dotted around the room. I can&apos;t imagine doing it any other way.

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• AZ

  @Azdak · 10 months ago

  First time I carried a coffin was for my grandad&apos;s sister. My feet got out of step to the person opposite me and I was struggling and terrified I was going to drop it. Afterwards my Grandad and I laughed about it, he&apos;d had seen me struggle. I made sure I didn&apos;t make the same mistake when carrying his coffin. It&apos;s also one of my motivation when I&apos;m at the gym, I need the strength to carry my loved ones

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• JU

  @Julia-u4c1d · 10 months ago

  Being of Irish extraction, we went to see a body laid out, when I was a a child. The result was I am not at all afraid of death. It is part of the cycle of life. Children should not be sheltered from it. After all, we all have to face it! Julia..

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• PI

  @pincord3121 · 10 months ago

  Wakes are still very common, as is family and friends digging the grave in rural graveyards where you wouldn&apos;t have council gravediggers. I&apos;ve been to a fair few rural funerals where the body lies in repose at the house, and you see the true value of a rural community coming together to support the bereaved family, where the calling up to the house to pay respects can take hours, with the amount of neighbours and friends queuing up to console the family. Plenty of people would bring sandwiches, cakes or whatever along to the house, where after paying their respects would stay for a tea/beer etc and chat to friends and family. Meanwhile volunteers would have been placed at all approaches to the house directing traffic (on usually small country roads). It&apos;s the very definition of community.

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• MA

  @maryg1711 · 10 months ago

  The funeral home who were going to look after my father (here in Australia) we are from the west Leitrim/Donegal - were somewhat taken aback by the fact that we decided to keep him at home for a couple of days for our wake - and people could come around to see him and say goodbye! &nbsp;We sat around the bed &nbsp;eating and drinking and talking about and to him! The grandkids wrote him notes and we laminated photos of family <br>to go with him - and a couple wee bottles of whiskey- he had a good send off!!

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• PI

  @Pique147 · 11 months ago

  The pipes he mentions being passed around were clay pipes, called Duidins (Doo-jeans) and were cheap and plentiful in bygone time. They were the disposable vapes of the time. Tradition was that at the end of the wake, the pipes would be broken. There&apos;s a modern production of them still in one of the traditional pipe making locations in Ireland. The Claypipe Visitor Centre.

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