Symbolism of Chaos

After interviewing my father, I became very interested in looking further into the customs of an Irish Wake. According to Roger Grainger author of the article "Let death be Death: Lessons, from the Irish Wake", Irish Wakes are a way of praising unruliness. By that statement, Grainger is trying to potray that instead of grieving death and being scared of it, people should learn to proclaim it.

In order to proclaim death the Irish sometimes even play out games in order to create chaos."The chaos through which the dead person must pass is reproduced in the chaotic reversals of social practice which occur during the mourning period, mirroring the contradictory emotions and impulses of bereaved individuals as they rebound between their need to suffer and be comforted, to remember and forget, in the urgency of their search for an escape from the anguish of the present" (Grainger 1998:132).

This way of dealing with death allows people to express their grief fears of death through irrational and energetic ways. This way Grainger states, allows people to "express discontinuity with the past and the affirmation of a new status and direction". From what information Grainger provides in his article, I have come to find that the Irish are very aware of an individual's presence in the universe also known being cosimcally inept. From the information provided in the article "Let Death be Death", it is very obvious that such celebrations, with"chaos" in the presence of the deceased at funerals is looked at as proclaiming one's ending of existence.

As put by Grainger, "The wake is society's way of saying that, to a greater or lesser extent, according to the size of the social group involved and the importance of the dead person's role within that group, the world has been radically and permanently changed" (Grainger 1998:132). By looking at death this way, It allows you to give closure to ones life and start onto the next step of your life with a clean and positive standpoint. It's not as if these people are simply forgetting about the past, but simply remembering their lives instead of their death.

Grainger, Roger
1998 Mortality:Let Death Be Death: Lessons From the Irish Wake. Morality 3(2):129-141.

Super Gram's Funeral

Having a Father whom is Irish is helpful in trying to understand the Irish funeral ceremonies. I decided to interview my father to explain an Irish funeral and it's unique traditions. I asked him six questions in which I believed would explain Irish funerals. First, I asked him to describe an Irish Wake. He answered, "An Irish wake is where the body is laid out in the house with the obligatory rosary beads the afternoon or evening before the funeral." He explained how Friends and relatives will gather around the casket and tell anecdotes about the deceased as a celebration of their life and are usually funny especially as more alcohol is consumed. He also added that there is food usually brought over by neighbors and friends and of course alcohol.

Secondly, I asked him to describe an Irish Funeral. He explained how in an Irish funeral the body is taken from the home to the funeral parlor for the closing of the casket and the to the church the night before the funeral. He added, “There is a service given by the priest and the deceased is usually eulogized again usually with a sense of humor. In the small villages there is a procession to the graveyard where the deceased is laid to rest."

The third question I asked was for him to tell one unique story that he experienced during an Irish funeral. He described his grandmas aka " super gram's" wake. He stated that "Usually the priest is an integral part of the community and knows everyone because of the Irish population's devout catholic beliefs." At his grandmother's funeral service the priest brought out super gram's handbag that seemed permanently attached to her. He began to pull items out of the bag and tell a little story about each item. He then explained how " Her rosary beads which she always carried with her and the head scarf she wore when her hair was in rollers and even a bottle of Guinness which she always had with her dinner each night."

Fourth, I asked him what the unique traditions that the Irish partake in during their funeral ceremonies and he told me how the unique traditions of an Irish funeral are the laying out of the body in the house and the drinking and amount of food. He then said "The Irish sense of humor is unique so the anecdotes about the deceased are usually funny so there is much merriment at an Irish funeral whereas for some other nationalities it is a somber and morose affair". I then asked, how do these families deal with the grieving process? He then explained how the families get through grieving with the support of the communities. He also said "In a lot of the villages in Ireland they are tight knit communities so the neighbors will provide food and drink for the deceased family and walk in the procession behind the casket. However the waking process helps the families as the Irish sense of humor celebrates the life of the deceased."

What i found most interesting about this interview was the topic of humor involved with these funeral ceremonies. As my father said, the irish have merriment in their funerals as compared to other nationalities whose funerals are "somber and morose." This is very true when comparing Irish and american funerals. It is enlightening to think about death in a more positive way because it's a way of celebrating ones life rather than grieving their loss. From this interview, I have become more engrossed in the topic of humor, and will go further into this topic in the near future.

David Cronin, interview by Samantha Cronin, Email, Norton,MA, 3/30/2010

The Funeral Lament

Picture Above titled "An Irish Lament for Alexander the Great"

In Ireland, one of the many unique customs practiced at funerals is the reciting of the Lament. Patricia Lysaght explains in her article, "Caoineadh os Cionn Coirp: The Lament for the Dead in Ireland" that "The lament for the dead has been the subject of comment by visitors to Ireland since the twelfth century". For those of you who don't understand what a Lament might be the definition by qtd (Honko,1974: 9) is "Laments are poetry of final parting" (qtd Lysaght, 1997:394).

The Irish recite these poems during the funeral ceremonies as a way of closure. As Lysaght explains, Laments are recited at the end of a funeral. It can be recited by a number of people, each reciting a single verse, or a single person. Laments are recited slowly, sometimes even in song form. Angela Burke says in her article, "The Irish traditional lament and the grieving process" that Irish Laments suggest a " high-pitched, inarticulate moaning, but the Irish word caoineadh, from which it derives signifies among other things, a highly articulate tradition of women's oral poetry".

From Bourke' article, I learned that these laments are usually on the women’s part. They are also meant to sometimes exemplify the grieving de-shoveled family members in the form of a song. Some examples of Laments translated from Gaelic to English still thrive today. (Bourke, 1988:287) These laments are interesting to me because they are very different from what our usual ceremonies entail musically.

At American funerals, our music is arranged by the family members and is played as background music during wakes. During funerals, there’s usually no music being played. A family member may be known to recite a poem about the person’s life but this usually happens during the wake process. I believe that this Irish singing tradition is beautiful and leaves a subtle positive note on the person’s life.




Lysaght, Patricia
1997 Folklore: Caoineadh Os Cionn Coirp. The Lament for the Dead in Ireland. 413(3):1-27

Bourke, Angela
1988 Women's Studies International Forum: The Irish traditional lament and the grieving process. 11 (4):287-291.

P.S I love you

In the movie P.S I love you starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler, an Irish funeral is held in a family restaurant and bar in NYC. The funeral scene is a prime example of certain traditions and rituals that are apart of ceremonies in Ireland. The gathering is rather large, of immediate family and loved ones. Although, people are grieving, the atmosphere is not dreary and rather upbeat. There is music on in the background which would have been the husband's favorite playlist. During the actual ceremony, people pass the box in which the man is cremated in and take a shot of whiskey upon it.

When I first watched this scene I thought it was bittersweet. I thought this because I was comparing it to the ordinary americanized wake where everyone stands in line and solemnly walks to the casket, makes a prayer, gives the family there condolences, and then leaves. However, at this particular wake, everyone stayed, conversed, and drank the night away in memory of the deceased. It was almost comforting to know that all these people loved him so much, and they celebrated his life in such a positive way. In Ireland, you would find this type of atmosphere at wakes of the deceased. According to Patricia Lysaght author of "Hospitality at wakes and funerals in Ireland from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century" , ""the Jesuit Christopher Holywood writing in 1617, tradesmen “in a certain city” were known to leave a large amount of money to be spent on drink at their wakes" (Patricia Lysaght,405). Lysaght explains how the catholic church tried to ban practices of alcoholic drink and feasting during funeral ceremonies but failed.

What Lysaght exemplifies in her article are the beginnings of the celebratory outlook on irish funerals, and how these traditions stuck over time. Since this movie was produced in 2007, it shows to say that these traditions have been of great importance within irish funeral ceremonies to this day. The fact is, unless you understand the Irish culture, how will you understand their rituals?


To see the funeral scene, click on the hyperlink below titled with the song played during the wake:

"Fairy Tale of New York"

Lysaght, Patricia
2003 Folklore: Hospitality at Wakes and Funerals in Ireland from the Seventeenth to The
Nineteenth century. Some Evidence From the Written Record. 114(3):403-426

The Notion of Celebrating Death

The general definition of funeral is a ceremony at which a dead person is buried or cremated.(wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn) A funeral can have many different meanings depending on your cultural background. For me, I have always had a set idea of a funeral in which I inherited through american culture. This idea I have includes a service at which is solemn and heartbreaking. I have always been reluctant to be apart of such ceremonies, mainly because its hard to see the pained family members of the deceased, and the hardships of saying goodbye.

As a child, I would visit my family in ireland and found many differences within their culture. One of the biggest, being their celebration of the deceased. I first became aware of their notions of death when family was joking around about a funeral they attended the week before. I distinctively remember my super gram (great grandmother) telling a story of the men at the funeral who held a card game on the casket of one of their friends telling jokes and toasting to his death. This was hard for me to comprehend because of the experiences I had from the funerals back home. She went on to explain how the men then decided to leave a good hand of cards within their friends casket so that he would go to his grave a winner. I didn't understand how they could joke around about the death of a loved one, nor could I understand the fact of the drinking in the memory of a friend. This bothered me because it seemed as if they were actually celebrating this persons death. Ever since I have been interested in understanding such funeral traditions of the Irish.

I want to understand how the Irish deal with the deaths of loved ones, by examining their mourning processes, and wake and funeral traditions and values. I will do this by interviewing family members, and researching scholarly articles about these Irish funerary ceremonies and how they originated. Through my research, I hope to come to an understanding of these traditions and maybe even comply with this brighter outlook on death.