No one does death like the Irish. So the saying goes. Or so we tell ourselves. When a funeral cortege makes its way from the Church to the graveyard, people come out of their houses to stand on the side of the road to pay their respects as the hearse passes. Many people walk solemnly behind the hearse, sometimes for miles, as it makes its way to the graveyard.
Beforehand the remains of the deceased are laid out in the sitting room of their home where neighbours and friends come to visit, say a prayer, and have a cup of tea and a sandwich, often “within earshot” of the dearly departed. A respectful prayer can take place side-by-side with a ferocious debate about the state of county Gaelic football. We keep the departed company all through the night as they await removal to their final resting place. Sometimes this can be for multiple nights.
Then there is the Irish wake. Often the word “wake” is thought to mean to stay up all night – to stay awake – or for others the misconception is that it is done in case the deceased may not be dead at all and may wake in the middle of the night. But its real meaning is to keep vigil or to stand guard, to keep evil away and to placate the soul. Wakes are often the social crescendo of the funereal customs – a celebration of the life just gone with drink and song, and ham sandwiches aplenty.
The wake is a time for eulogies, talking amongst friends and family of a life well lived. Often musical instruments will appear, there will be a sing-song, some boisterous and some lamentations. There may even be jigs and reels. It is a time of mourning, but with a particular Irish flavour. Death is front and centre, it is not hidden away. We say never speak ill of the dead, and this is never more true than at a wake. Rather than being woke, the deceased is “waked”.
This is why the funeral of Shane MacGowan, recently departed singer, songwriter and much beloved Irish balladeer, felt so familiar. Because it was so much like a wake. More wake than funeral. There was singing and dancing, great merriment, and eulogies till the cows come home. Parish Priest of Nenagh in the Diocese of Killaloe, Fr Pat Gilbert, talked of the “poet, lyricist, singer, trailblazer” repeatedly in his homily, and how the recently deceased “connected the cultural, the sociological, the spiritual, the physical and the metaphysical into a coherent translation of what was happening all around us”. This may have been somewhat hyperbolic, but it is also part of the tradition in Ireland to exaggerate the positives and forget the flaws as we send the departed to their final resting place.
And therein lies the rub of this funeral Mass feeling more like a wake. The wake has increasingly disappeared from Irish society, especially in urban areas, but more and more so in the countryside where it was, literally, a rite of passage. As Irish society has changed, so the customs and social mores have evolved. Now less of a country of tight-knit communities where everything is dropped to attend to the dead for a few days, the wake no longer fits with the tempo and displacement of modern life. And the funeral is expected to bridge the social gap left behind.
The Church has struggled in its decline in Ireland, where the symbiotic yet distinct relationship between the wake and the funeral in Ireland used to be clearly understood but no longer is. The Church, for so long the default location for funerals in a country that was predominantly Catholic, offered, de facto, a religious and cultural service for the deceased and those left behind. The wake was never fully separate from the religious Rite, with a prayer vigil and Rosary often taking place in the house of the deceased the night before burial.
But with far fewer people in Ireland now practicing Catholics, the understanding that the Requiem Mass – the Funeral Rite – is and continues to be the Mass in its fullest sense is being lost. Many that attend Church funerals no longer know, and often no longer care, that the funeral is a religious event where the Church “seeks spiritual support for the deceased, honours their bodies, and at the same time brings the solace of hope to the living.” The Final Commendation and the Rite of Committal are almost totally unknown.
With the disappearance of the wake, there is almost a sense of entitlement, an expectation, that the Funeral Mass will fulfil the social role as well as the eschatological requirements. For many, the social, celebratory and performative aspects take precedence over the eternal. The life lived is more important than the soul that carries on.
For years, the Church in Ireland has wrestled with disentangling itself from this dual role – a product both of deep Catholicism and a cultural version that continues as a zombie form of religion – in many of its rites and Sacraments. But especially when it comes to the funeral.
Priests are often, almost always, in the position of having to protect the rubrics of the Mass and the Funeral Rite, while bending to the expectation that the Church will accommodate the remnants of the wake in the form of un-church-like music requests to accompany the deceased, ill-chosen memorial items to remember the deceased in front of the altar, and often inappropriate and sometimes embarrassing eulogies before the Final Commendation. It is not unfamiliar that the majority of mourners at the Church will not appear for the Rite of Committal at the graveyard.
Many priests are unwilling to give guidance and to explicitly outline the requirements of the Church and the Requiem Mass. Often, they want to be accommodating to the requests of the family of the deceased to say final kind words, to play a much-loved tune. This human desire is understandable. No one wants to be seen as a begrudger of simple things. But then it becomes impossible to find where to draw the line. They rely on the common sense and the sense of appropriateness and occasion of the mourners to know where that line ought to be.
Yet common sense is not so common. And the line is continuing to move the further the Church and its traditions are pushed to the sidelines. Society wants – demands! – the trappings of the Church funeral. It wants the style – just not the substance. Many see the Church funeral as a public good, and with that expect bespoke services on demand. Any attempts by the clergy to say “thus far shall you go” are met with apoplexy and incredulity. How dare he!?
This was particularly evident at Shane MacGowan’s funeral. So many performing and attending saw nothing wrong with the musicians moving front and centre of the altar, in front of the Tabernacle, in front of the cross, to sing “Fairytale of New York”, Shane MacGowan’s most famous and celebrated song, even if it is nowhere near the top of the list of his best. So few felt little wrong with the most famous and well-known ribald words of the song being sung in God’s house.
Indeed, some of the lyrics were recently considered unacceptable for modern secular sensitivities – by the woke rather than the waked – but MacGowan, to his credit, did not back down even when the BBC unilaterally changed the lyrics to the song in 2020. Yet now, apparently, they are redeemed when sung, sacrilegiously, in God’s house.
Shane MacGowan was, is, a Catholic. He, as Fr Gilbert noted, had “great faith in Our Blessed Lady and received Holy Communion from this church regularly”. It is reported he requested and received the Last Rites before he died. Would he have wanted this for the Church and for his funeral? I don’t know. But like others there, perhaps, they know not what they do. And even if they know, most simply do not believe. And if they do not believe, then, well, what is the harm in singing an aul’ song at the altar and doing a few jigs and waltzes across the aisle? Why not wave your hands in the air, replicating the praise of a gospel choir but doing it to the words no longer directed at the divine but at the gutter.
But there are Catholics that know. The Irish Catholic Bishops know. But little is said. And the destruction of the Funeral Rite will go on as others will look to the funeral of Shane MacGowan and think: “I want that. I want that for me. I want it for my Da. I want it for my Ma.” And how can they be denied? The priest who says no will be hauled over social media for being insensitive, for being rigid. For being Catholic.
Photo: Funeral procession of Shane MacGowan through the streets of Dublin, Ireland, 8 December 2023. (Credit: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images.)
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