It is said of an Irishman—a true Irishman—that he proposes to his intended in these words: “Would ye like to be buried with my people?” I thought of that as a joke until I came to live, even briefly, among them. The Irish—the true Irish—appreciation of death is remarkable. The Italian Francesco Bernardone called death his sister, but the Irishman might well call death his spouse. Death in Ireland is as natural as its grass-fed milk cows, and as supernatural as the rock-hewn chapels on its windswept islands. Death in Ireland is as familiar as a few hours with neighbors in the corner pub.
I lost my fear of death in France, at St. Thérèse’s tomb in Lisieux. As she lay dying at age 24, Thérèse had written je ne meurs pas; j’entre dans la vie: “I am not dying; I’m entering into life.” Suddenly sensing the scent of roses at her tomb in 1997, I knew that she was there. I knew that she was very much alive, and that she was telling me personally that she had not “died.” I lost my fear of death that day.
I gained a new respect for death in Italy, at Mother Teresa’s convent in Piombino, where I gave her sisters a weeklong retreat in 2010. The Contemplative Missionaries of Charity lived in the house given to them, which was the cemetery caretaker’s residence. They attended Mass, did their prayers, confessed their sins, and heard retreat talks all in a small funerary chapel, surrounded by the tombs of the rich and the poor. Hearing confessions atop the bones of those who had made their living in that fishing village centuries ago, I came to respect these people whom I had never known in life. I understood the nobility of death that week.
I came to love death in Ireland, among the people of this green land. Last week I did two village funerals, laying both to rest in the rich soil prepared by relatives. In America, where we have places to go and people to see, a funeral is a matter of two hours. In traditional Ireland, Christian burial takes three days. People stop what they are doing, and work is set aside in respect for the dead. The Irish, by the way, have a marvelous relationship with time. “When God made time,” the sacristan told me yesterday, “He made enough of it.”
On the first day, the body is laid out in the living room, and all spend four or five hours together as Uncle Anthony rests among them, hands folded over his rosary. We visit, we pray the rosary, and we visit some more, eating and drinking, telling stories and singing songs. Uncle Anthony's body stayed at home overnight, with his wife and children, as the Irish are not afraid to sleep with the dead. The Second day is a more formal rosary at the funeral home, but again, the people arrive two or three hours before the prayers and spend a few hours back at the house after the rosary. On the third day people come to the church for holy Mass, with a procession to the grave, which is usually just outside the church. We pray another rosary at the grave, and people spend another hour or two milling about, perhaps returning to the house for the afternoon.
My second funeral this week was for a stillborn child, and the third day took all day. Because the family had been up quite late visiting with friends and family on the second day, all slept rather later than usual on the third day. By late morning, however, all were preparing for the requiem at the church, which brought in great numbers from the village. No good Irishman wants to miss a funeral. After the requiem we took Avila Marie’s tiny body to St. Bartholomew’s cemetery in Kinneigh. The family have a small piece of ground at St. Bartholomew's where “their people” await the resurrection.
Amid graves and a round tower going back a thousand years, the father of the child, his father, and two brothers had dug the grave the day before. The father’s uncle had been laid in that ancestral grave sixty years before, and the diggers had found bits of his bones as they dug down. The child would sleep amid the relics of her great uncle in that rich soil.
After four men had lowered the tiny casket into the earth, we all went back to the house for dinner. The child’s father had given up drink when the doctors told his wife, two weeks previously, that the baby’s heart had stopped. He fasted as well, begging God for a miracle. But now that his daughter was safely back with God, he handed me a cup of tea soaked with Irish Whiskey, taking one for himself with a big smile. I spent an hour trying to understand local farm jokes through an impenetrable brogue before returning to my house for the evening. But the day was not done. The child’s father called me an hour later. “Would you like to come for the burial?”
A late afternoon sun was casting longer shadows and golden light through the green grass when we returned to Kinneigh cemetery. I said some more prayers, we lit a candle, and the father handed me a spade. He and I carefully placed the first shovelfuls of earth beside his daughter’s casket, and then everyone had their turn helping bury the dead. The aforementioned relics of Uncle Jeremiah went into the grave with the black earth, and when all were cozily packed in together, several “flags” (flat stones) were tamped down atop the ground. We prayed a final prayer, sang a final song, and departed.
But the day was not over. The minivans reassembled, by unspoken agreement, at the village fish-and-chips takeout. As we waited for curry chips and potato pies to be prepared, the children raced between family vehicles and played tag in the street. Then, toting our hot supper in thick brown paper bags, we returned to the house for another hour or two of eating, talking, and giving thanks.
Every culture has its own genius when it comes to death. I may be pardoned for being partial to Christian cultures, but I must say that Irish Catholic traditions around death are particularly remarkable. The Irish intuition of and love for human nature is extraordinary, and it does not end with death. More than most, the Irish move naturally among the communion of saints, both here and hereafter. Uncle Jeremiah and baby Avila Marie sleep in the same grave, no longer separated by sixty years and two continents.
The baby’s cousins, still on this side of the grave, were taught not to fear death. They saw their kinswoman’s body laid out for three days, not afraid to touch her tiny limbs as they dried up, slowly returning to the earth. They were not afraid to look upon Uncle Jeremiah's occasional vertebrae mixed with the dark soil of their native land. Yesterday they saw how we return to the soil, from which we were taken. But they also saw that the men and women in that soil are more than earth. The celtic crosses atop their tombs testify to their hope beyond this life, and beyond death.
I lost my fear of death in France, at St. Thérèse’s tomb in Lisieux. As she lay dying at age 24, Thérèse had written je ne meurs pas; j’entre dans la vie: “I am not dying; I’m entering into life.” Suddenly sensing the scent of roses at her tomb in 1997, I knew that she was there. I knew that she was very much alive, and that she was telling me personally that she had not “died.” I lost my fear of death that day.
I gained a new respect for death in Italy, at Mother Teresa’s convent in Piombino, where I gave her sisters a weeklong retreat in 2010. The Contemplative Missionaries of Charity lived in the house given to them, which was the cemetery caretaker’s residence. They attended Mass, did their prayers, confessed their sins, and heard retreat talks all in a small funerary chapel, surrounded by the tombs of the rich and the poor. Hearing confessions atop the bones of those who had made their living in that fishing village centuries ago, I came to respect these people whom I had never known in life. I understood the nobility of death that week.
I came to love death in Ireland, among the people of this green land. Last week I did two village funerals, laying both to rest in the rich soil prepared by relatives. In America, where we have places to go and people to see, a funeral is a matter of two hours. In traditional Ireland, Christian burial takes three days. People stop what they are doing, and work is set aside in respect for the dead. The Irish, by the way, have a marvelous relationship with time. “When God made time,” the sacristan told me yesterday, “He made enough of it.”
On the first day, the body is laid out in the living room, and all spend four or five hours together as Uncle Anthony rests among them, hands folded over his rosary. We visit, we pray the rosary, and we visit some more, eating and drinking, telling stories and singing songs. Uncle Anthony's body stayed at home overnight, with his wife and children, as the Irish are not afraid to sleep with the dead. The Second day is a more formal rosary at the funeral home, but again, the people arrive two or three hours before the prayers and spend a few hours back at the house after the rosary. On the third day people come to the church for holy Mass, with a procession to the grave, which is usually just outside the church. We pray another rosary at the grave, and people spend another hour or two milling about, perhaps returning to the house for the afternoon.
My second funeral this week was for a stillborn child, and the third day took all day. Because the family had been up quite late visiting with friends and family on the second day, all slept rather later than usual on the third day. By late morning, however, all were preparing for the requiem at the church, which brought in great numbers from the village. No good Irishman wants to miss a funeral. After the requiem we took Avila Marie’s tiny body to St. Bartholomew’s cemetery in Kinneigh. The family have a small piece of ground at St. Bartholomew's where “their people” await the resurrection.
Amid graves and a round tower going back a thousand years, the father of the child, his father, and two brothers had dug the grave the day before. The father’s uncle had been laid in that ancestral grave sixty years before, and the diggers had found bits of his bones as they dug down. The child would sleep amid the relics of her great uncle in that rich soil.
After four men had lowered the tiny casket into the earth, we all went back to the house for dinner. The child’s father had given up drink when the doctors told his wife, two weeks previously, that the baby’s heart had stopped. He fasted as well, begging God for a miracle. But now that his daughter was safely back with God, he handed me a cup of tea soaked with Irish Whiskey, taking one for himself with a big smile. I spent an hour trying to understand local farm jokes through an impenetrable brogue before returning to my house for the evening. But the day was not done. The child’s father called me an hour later. “Would you like to come for the burial?”
A late afternoon sun was casting longer shadows and golden light through the green grass when we returned to Kinneigh cemetery. I said some more prayers, we lit a candle, and the father handed me a spade. He and I carefully placed the first shovelfuls of earth beside his daughter’s casket, and then everyone had their turn helping bury the dead. The aforementioned relics of Uncle Jeremiah went into the grave with the black earth, and when all were cozily packed in together, several “flags” (flat stones) were tamped down atop the ground. We prayed a final prayer, sang a final song, and departed.
But the day was not over. The minivans reassembled, by unspoken agreement, at the village fish-and-chips takeout. As we waited for curry chips and potato pies to be prepared, the children raced between family vehicles and played tag in the street. Then, toting our hot supper in thick brown paper bags, we returned to the house for another hour or two of eating, talking, and giving thanks.
Every culture has its own genius when it comes to death. I may be pardoned for being partial to Christian cultures, but I must say that Irish Catholic traditions around death are particularly remarkable. The Irish intuition of and love for human nature is extraordinary, and it does not end with death. More than most, the Irish move naturally among the communion of saints, both here and hereafter. Uncle Jeremiah and baby Avila Marie sleep in the same grave, no longer separated by sixty years and two continents.
The baby’s cousins, still on this side of the grave, were taught not to fear death. They saw their kinswoman’s body laid out for three days, not afraid to touch her tiny limbs as they dried up, slowly returning to the earth. They were not afraid to look upon Uncle Jeremiah's occasional vertebrae mixed with the dark soil of their native land. Yesterday they saw how we return to the soil, from which we were taken. But they also saw that the men and women in that soil are more than earth. The celtic crosses atop their tombs testify to their hope beyond this life, and beyond death.
The cemetery and Round Tower at Kinneigh. Photo credit: Frank Murphy
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