Well the great Gerry Ryan has shuffled off his mortal coil and his loyal band of listeners are understandably very upset. I suppose we’re all a bit shook by it because we don’t expect people that young and vibrant to die. I can’t say I listened to the bauld Gerry that much, he was a bit of an acquired taste and all that women’s talk he went on with never appealed to me. He didn’t care what people thought about him and called it as he saw it, for that he deserves our respect. Anyway as I was skimming through the papers and the pages and pages of coverage I was delighted to see that Gerry is going to be waked in traditional fashion in his family home. Not everyone is waked in their family home these days and waking is not the only important funeral tradition comin’ under threat.
There’s a lot of people now who avoid waking the corpse. The tradition was that the people who had suffered the bereavement put on a decent spread of drink, ham sandwiches and sweet cake for the neighbours and friends of the deceased. There’s others these days who avoid the customary hospitality on the day of the burial, a few rounds of free drinks and of course the soup and sandwiches and a full dinner for the gravediggers. Sure the guts of a thousand generally covers all the hospitality and sure doesn’t everyone leave a few bob to cover it, its not as if it’s comin’ out of the survivors pockets. Sure as I always say isn’t it nice to be nice.
There was uproar here in our little village last month when aul Paddy Madigan passed away. Didn’t they go and make the house private and stuck up a big sign on the gate. There was a crowd of us neighbours that had to wait outside the feckin’ gate for the best part of a half hour before they eventually did the right thing and let us in. I don’t know why they were tryin’ to keep us out sure the house wasn’t in a bad state at all. I told Mary Madigan that I’d been in many houses where the bereaved had made no attempt at all to redecorate for the wake, in fairness to Mary she had the place grand and clean. Sure aren’t wakes the only chance many of us get to have a look inside the neighbours’ houses these days.
Anyway it’ll be a bad day when they make death and bereavement private. There’s little enough chance to celebrate anything in this place, if they end up privatising funerals we’ll have fewer chances of meeting up and havin’ a laugh and a few pints. But there’s some misguided people around here who won’t be happy until they’ve taken the little bit of craic we have left away from us.
The wake has always been a fierce important social occasion. I know two married couples who met up at a wake and I know at least two people who ended up getting the ride at a funeral a few months ago and they weren’t in their teens either in case you’re wonderin’.
These people who want to make houses private are the same shower who want to get minidiggers in to dig graves. Sure that’s takin’ all the sense of occasion out of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they endin’ up makin’ funerals invitation only and robbed us of yet another opportunity for the community to come together, mark the passing of a neighbour, get pissed and think about who might be next. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there’s quare people around these days.
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