Wakes and Caoineadh

Wakes

 I was recently proofreading an academic essay for a university student, and the theme was Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire. I have read about this before both in school and in adult life. I was fascinated with the topic and its historical context in Cork.

The mná caointe or keeners were professional mourners who wailed and screamed at wakes and funerals in Ireland. This ritual was a throwback to pagan Ireland when women at wakes wailed in mournful tones for the dead, often going on for days.

Then I remembered wakes I attended in my youth in Kerry. Many were great social occasions totally different to the funeral homes of today.

I remember my grandparents telling me about souls passing from the earthly life to a better one beyond. There were tales about haunted houses. They told us about dead relatives paying a return visit to remind the living to mend their ways. Falling stars were referred to as souls returning to or departing from this earth.

A nursing friend told me the following story: I remember during my nurse training days, when someone died, we opened the window to let the soul out. I didn't really believe it but when my father died unexpectedly my first reaction was to open the window and free his soul.

A wake was meant to celebrate a person’s life and to help them get over the line into the next life. The body was often laid out in the kitchen lit by four big candles. All blinds were pulled down, pictures and mirrors were covered over except for the picture of the sacred heart, lit by the red lamp which cast a warm glow across the room.

The wake, or faire in Irish, was always a great family gathering. The corpse was watched over by friends and family for a couple of days with the rosary being recited at regular intervals followed by the litany of the saints with the plaintive response of pray for us as each saint’s name was intoned. The prayer session was finished with the recital of the Memorare and the Hail Holy Queen.

This neighbourliness was a very practical act of kindness and comfort to the family of the deceased praying for the soul’s safe journey to heaven.

Sometimes it was far from being a total prayerful spiritual event. I remember the great wakes in Tralee involved music, food and storytelling. Whiskey and poitin were also in plentiful supply as was loose porter in a white enamel bucket. It was common enough to have a song or two sung at wakes.

There were also many stories of arguments and fights at wakes. I remember being at mass in Tralee many years ago when Dean Reidy was giving a sermon. It was the Sunday after the Rose of Tralee Festivals main Saturday night opening event which was loud, and pints of porter flowed freely. Dean Reidy described it as follows ‘You might as well have been at Puck Fair in Killorglin or a wake in Tonevane.

The Catholic Church at the time frowned on the way wakes were conducted with music, card games and rings being played at them. Excessive drinking of alcohol was also commonplace with the object of giving the deceased a good send off.Despite the opposition to them rural Ireland continued with the wakes. Match makers were also often in attendance.

As we have become more urbanised over the years and more funeral homes have opened the waking process has become more subdued. People go to these homes to sympathise and show a spirit of togetherness, to share stories about the deceased, and comfort the family. Waking at home is now the exception.

Wakes have been mentioned in song and story. In the recent past Tom Murphy wrote The Wake, a brilliant play about a family and a wake when a wayward daughter, who worked as a call girl, came home from New York to find that her grandmother had died three months earlier. She had willed the family hotel to this granddaughter, but the family had not told her. Murphy writes a brilliant play about the wake, the intrigue and a family at war over a disputed property. It’s worth a read if you really want to see lack of trust and togetherness in Irish family life, all intertwined in this excellent play...

From my schooldays I remember Patrick Pearse’s love poem about Bean Sléibhe ag caoineadh.

Is brón ar an mbás, nach dubh mo chroi istigh,

Sé a d’fhuadaigh mo ghrá uaim is a dfhág mé go cloíte

Gan caraid ná compánach fá dhíon mo thíse

Ach mo leanbh ar lár agus mé dá chaoineadh.

Loosely translated into English it reads

Grief on the death, it has blackened my heart

It has snatched my love and left me desolate

Without friend or companion under the roof of my house

But this sorrow in the midst of me, and I am keening

So here we have a reference again to the caoineadh or keening.

In times past there were very visible outdoor signs about death in our communities like the death notice on the front door, the family wearing black outfits at funerals and around town for at least a month after a loved one’s death.

Men wore a black diamond shaped piece of cloth on their outer jackets for a 12-month period after a family bereavement.

Nowadays there isn’t the same adherence to wearing black. Some families request people to wear bright colours to celebrate a person’s life, particularly when a young person dies.

Funeral services too have changed from the strict rituals of the past to more relaxed ceremonies. There are now more humanist funerals, and cremation is fast replacing the traditional grave and grave diggers.

Many people still respect All Saints and All Souls days in November. They place a memoriam notice in the local paper, visit graveyards, go to mass or service. Some families will have a family meal together if the relative died in the past year.

Many communities have an Annual Pattern Day when mass is said in the graveyard, and most families clean up their graves and attend. Mini festivals are built around these days and relatives travel long distances to attend.

Wakes and funerals have always been sad personal events for grieving families, friends and neighbours and they will continue to be so. Let us continue to support bereaved families.