Truth About Irish Funeral Beliefs

Summary

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal

Episode Summary: Truth About Irish Funeral Beliefs

Release Date: October 30, 2025
Hosts: Anthony Delaney & Maddy Pelling; Guest: Dan Snow

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Main Theme

This episode delves into the unique, dramatic, and defiant traditions surrounding Irish funerals – from the ancient practice of keening (ritual lamentation by women), to wakes held in the home, corpse roads, and enduring superstitions. The hosts discuss how these customs were shaped by cultural, religious, and political forces, and what they reveal about attitudes to death, grief, and community in Ireland.

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Discussion Breakdown

1. Introduction & Context: The Power of Keening

[02:19–05:10]

• Maddy Pelling introduces the topic: ancient Irish funeral customs so transgressive that both the British government and the Catholic Church attempted to stamp them out.
• Anthony Delaney vividly recreates being at an Irish graveside, describing the powerful, communal ritual of keening – women wailing, singing, and openly expressing collective grief.
• The tradition's deep roots and persistence despite external attempts to suppress it are established.

“It is a wild crying for the dead led by the women possessed with an ecstasy of grief...a cry in the face of the horror to which we are all doomed.”
— Anthony Delaney [03:10]

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2. What Is Keening? Origins, Performance & Suppression

[05:11–15:24]

• What is Keening?
  • Anthony explains the word's origin (from "caoineadh" meaning 'to cry' in Irish), noting it's a formalized, paid performance—women would be hired to keen at funerals.
  • Keening could include references to the deceased’s flaws, serving as a kind of emotional exorcism.
  • Only women traditionally performed keening, possibly connected to banshee folklore and gendered expectations around grief.
• Why Was It Suppressed?
  • Seen as pagan, female-centered, and threatening to Church and state authority. The Catholic Church and the British government both sought to eradicate it.
  • Discussion about attitudes in "modern" Western funerals: the physicality and emotional openness of keening stand in contrast to sanitized, controlled ceremonies preferred by British/Western authorities.
• Class, Gender, and Control:
  • Paying women for keening was also frowned upon, as it gave "power and influence" over a key life ritual to rural, often poor women.

“It’s not the content. It’s the control...We can’t have this heathenistic pagan ritual going on when we’re trying to civilize.”
— Anthony Delaney [08:13]

"It’s only women that are taking part...the banshee stories as well."
— Anthony Delaney [07:32]

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3. Keening as Grief Art, Social Value, and Oral Tradition

[11:54–15:18]

• Performance with Purpose: Keening is not just emotional outburst—it’s structured, artistic, and helps the community process grief.
• Oral Tradition: Examples are drawn from the oral Gaelic tradition, including a translation of a keen by Eileen O’Connell (1793)—a poetic petition for her husband to rise from the dead, blending personal longing with ritual lament.
• Why Pay Keeners?: The irony that priests, organists, and undertakers are paid, but paying women to keen is seen as suspicious.
• "Death doulas": Anthony and Maddy reflect on modern parallels and the ongoing value of death rituals.

"Grief as an art form."
— Anthony Delaney [11:55]

"My own beloved dear. Now get up on your feet and come on home with me... I'll make you a bed with clean white sheets..."
— Eileen O’Connell's keen, read by Anthony Delaney [13:11]

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4. The Wake: Proximity, Ritual, and Superstition

[22:02–27:34]

• What Is a Wake?
  • Irish wakes historically lasted two days and nights, often with the unembalmed corpse present in the home. This ritual fostered proximity and familiarity with death.
  • Family and community observed superstitions (opening windows to let the soul out, covering mirrors, stopping clocks).
  • Unique to Ireland: everyone knows “what to do,” creating a sense of community through ritual, in contrast to often-awkward English funerals.
• Superstitions:
  • If a hen flies over the corpse, it must be killed ("you do not want that soul jumping into that hen").
  • Wakes provide structure and shared language for grief.

“As soon as she died, my mum... opened the window. Because that's one of those things—you let the soul out.”
— Anthony Delaney [22:22]

"You don't want grandma walking around as a hen."
— Maddy Pelling [24:56]

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5. Food, Drink & the Social Side of Death

[27:34–32:04]

• Drinking and smoking over the body were traditional—pipes and poitín (potato/barley moonshine) were shared, with prayers or toasts for the dead.
• The hosts actually sample poitín live, with much comedic effect.
• Notably, traditions around ritual food/drink have continuously evolved—poitín became a symbol of defiance after its prohibition.

"It's a bit vodka, isn't it? But fruitier."
— Dan Snow [28:47]

“As we were preparing for this, I got Freddie, our producer, to go on and look up my granny's profile on Rip.ie. Because everybody goes—everybody goes on.”
— Anthony Delaney [30:56]
(on how digital memorials on "Rip.ie" are now part of the tradition)

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6. Corpse Roads, Moving the Body & More Superstitions

[34:07–39:22]

• Corpse/Coffin Roads:
  • Bodies were traditionally carried by family along designated paths; it’s unlucky to put a coffin down on the grass (unless on a sheet). Doing so creates “hungry grass”—a patch of land requiring purification, else it brings misfortune.
  • The process binds the community; there’s a sense of responsibility and ritual choreography (even undertakers “direct” the family’s movement).
• Carrying the Coffin:
  • Traditionally a male responsibility, but this is changing.
  • The party must not break up on the journey, or risk bringing another death.

"If you leave it on the grass, the grass becomes what's called hungry grass... That grass then needs to be cleansed."
— Anthony Delaney [35:54]

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7. Reflection: Community, Grief, and Changing Traditions

[39:22–41:42]

• Large wakes foster community support and make the transition to private grief easier.
• Some aspects are being lost or scaled down in modern times, but many elements persevere—wakes, communal drinking, house versus funeral home.
• Fun anecdote about needing “stadium lighting and overflow car parks” for Anthony’s grandmother’s wake, underlining the scale and importance of the event.

“You are held up and you're bound together by this thing that the community comes together for.”
— Anthony Delaney [40:13]

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8. Final Superstition: The Hammering from the Wake

[41:42–44:47]

• Anthony tells a folk tale in the authentic accent: A man walking home alone from a wake is haunted by mysterious hammering, and dies that night. Possible explanations: supernatural warning, guilt, or even his own coffin being assembled.
• The story is left unresolved—underscoring the rich intersection of folklore, superstition, and existential anxiety in Irish funeral tradition.

"I think he's hearing the nails in his own coffin... he's foretelling his own death because he... left the wake by himself."
— Anthony Delaney [44:07]

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Notable Quotes

• Anthony Delaney [03:10]:
  "It is a wild crying for the dead led by the women possessed with an ecstasy of grief... It is the final act, a cry in the face of the horror to which we are all doomed."

• Dan Snow [09:17]:
  "It's almost like overt emotion is too much and the unpredictability that can come from within that emotion. Like, what happens if this community is literally wailing?"

• Anthony Delaney [22:22]:
  "As soon as she died... my mum... opened the window. Because that's one of those things—you let the soul out. You don't trap the soul in the room at the instant of death."

• Maddy Pelling [24:56]:
  "You don't want grandma walking around as a hen."

• Anthony Delaney [40:13]:
  "You are held up and you're bound together by this thing that the community comes together for."

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Key Timestamps & Segments

• [02:19] - Introduction to Irish funerary rites and their defiance.
• [05:23] - What is keening? Its rituals and origins explained.
• [07:28] - Gender, performance, and banshee folklore.
• [08:54] - Suppression by authorities: Church and government.
• [13:11] - Example of a keen (lament) translated and performed.
• [22:22] - Description and significance of the Irish wake.
• [24:43] - Superstitions: Hens, mirrors, and the soul’s journey.
• [27:34] - Drinking, pipes, and evolving wake rituals.
• [34:09] - Corpse roads, carrying coffins, and “hungry grass.”
• [41:48] - Folktale: The hammering and supernatural warnings.
• [44:55] - Light-hearted outro and reflection on last year’s Halloween episode.

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Memorable Moments

• The hosts drink poitín live on air at 28:13, resulting in comic reactions and banter:
  "Oh my God. It was a lot."
  — Anthony Delaney [28:35]

• The description of Anthony’s family needing “stadium lighting and overflow car parks” for a wake [40:07] brings home the epic, communal scale of Irish funeral practices.

• The hammering folktale retold with an Irish accent (41:48–44:47), inviting both supernatural and scientific interpretations, encapsulates the blend of skepticism and belief that characterizes the show.

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Tone & Language

• The tone is warm, irreverent, and vividly descriptive, blending historical authority with humor and personal anecdotes.
• The hosts use colloquialisms, witty banter, and playful teasing, especially regarding their own family practices, the oddness/appeal of traditions, and their own experience with Irish drink.

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For Listeners: Why This Episode Matters

Even if you haven’t experienced an Irish funeral, this episode opens a window onto a culture where death is met not with quiet distance, but with noise, ritual, community, and a willingness to face the darkness together. It explores not just what people do, but why they do it—how rituals evolve, why authorities fear them, and how folklore and superstition support us in the hardest moments of life.

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Further Exploration

• Watch vintage recordings of keening women on YouTube ([07:12])
• Explore Ireland’s digital obituary boards at [Rip.ie] ([30:56])
• For more on the Irish origins of Halloween, check last year’s Halloween special ([45:04])

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To suggest episodes or share your own Irish funeral stories, contact [e-mail].

Transcript

[Anthony Delaney]

Hi, we're your hosts Anthony Delaney and.

[Maddy Pelling]

Maddy Pelling and if you would like.

[Anthony Delaney]

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[Maddy Pelling]

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[Anthony Delaney]

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[Maddy Pelling]

This is the story of the ancient Gaelic burial tradition seemed to be so transgressive that both the British government and the Catholic Church fought to erase it entirely. Despite fierce political and religious opposition, public humiliation, whipping, beating and excommunication, the keening women of Ireland continued to appear at the graveside of Irish funerals arriving to wail, sing and violently grieve the dead as they had done for over a thousand years. From the long and winding corpse roads to the folklore curse of hungry grass, Today we will be digging into the hidden history of death and defiance in Ireland. This is after dark and this is the history of ancient Irish funerary rites.

[Anthony Delaney]

You've been up all night beside your lost love's body. You helped hammer together the coffin in the yard. You served drinks to visitors. Now you're at the graveside with the long straight line of Atlantic waves and the grey stone churchyard walls bounding you in all around you, some standing, some sitting on tombstones, are your people. They are beginning to keen. It is a wild crying for the dead led by the women possessed with an ecstasy of grief. You watch your kith and kin sway to and fro, bending their heads against gravestones, calling out to the dead in a sobbing chant. The sky darkens as the coffin is lowered into the grave. Thunder rumbles and hailstones hiss among the bracken as the keen builds to a crescendo. It is the final act, a cry in the face of the horror to which we are all doomed. Oh, we're getting spooky. So we have last year, as you probably remember, had a very special guest on for our Halloween episodes and we discussed different origins of Halloween, mostly the Irish ones, the Samhain ones. We also tasted some barmbrack, which was delicious. And we did some crafting, actually, which was probably life threatening in many ways. And we decided this year that we wanted to get the gang back together to celebrate Halloween once more. And now we are joined by none other than. Than Dan Snow. Hey guys, we're back in After Dark.

[Dan Snow]

Well, I mean, the promise of discussing a topic that both the Catholic church and the British government were on the same side of.

[Anthony Delaney]

Listen, it actually happens more than you might think, particularly when it comes to folklore. Yes, but it happens.

[Maddy Pelling]

Okay, so let's begin with the obvious Keening. Anthony, what is it?

[Dan Snow]

Embarrassingly, you hear the expression, I didn't know it was actually a thing.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, no, it really was a thing. Not in my lifetime. I don't actually. I've been to quite the few weeks I've never seen this in person. And actually it must be a real thing, dramatic thing to see. But let's kind of talk about some of the ins and outs of it. So we have the word comes from egqueana or quincha, which means to cry. So it's all about crying, lamenting. And you might think that it's a free form thing that's happening just on the spot that they're improvising. But actually, this is a very formalized performance. You're paying women to come and to sit beside the dead body or to follow the dead body down the road as it's going to the burial, and to wail and to cry and to lament and to sometimes celebrate. But also, if you've maybe done a few dodgy things, they'll bring that up as well as part of expunging those experiences. And it's really ancient. You're talking about, like, 8th century for this. So it's an old, old tradition, kind of dies out by the 1940s. They think on the Aran Islands as the last kind of place in the west of Ireland. So it really is like a traditional, traditional morning ritual.

[Maddy Pelling]

So, okay, I have a lot of questions, first of all. So you're telling me that if you've done something a bit dodgy or shit in your life, that the keening women will bring that up?

[Anthony Delaney]

It can be. It can be part of the lament. And there are different forms to that where they can say, you know, oh, forgive him. You know, it's almost like an appeal to say, forgive him for being so cruel that one time. But generally they will try and keep it, like, a little bit more of a, oh, we're gonna miss you, kind of.

[Maddy Pelling]

I'm already feeling slightly anxious thinking of, like, all the bad things that they.

[Anthony Delaney]

Would say about you that would come up. Yeah, I've heard record.

[Dan Snow]

I was going to say that we can hear this. Can we?

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, yeah. You can go on YouTube and you can find some recordings from the early 20th century, and they are. I mean, they are haunting. And, you know, you talk about, like. I don't know if you do, but one talks about the banshee. There is a banshee quality. And it's only women, by the way. So it's only women that are taking part in this.

[Maddy Pelling]

Well, this was going to be my second question because, you know, we're all about equality here. Why is it only women?

[Anthony Delaney]

I think it might link into that banshee link where it's women lamenting, it's crying. Talk about, like, the performance of gender. It's more acceptable that the women are absolutely losing their shit beside the grave than it is that men are doing it. So I think it feeds into that. And then the banshee stories as well.

[Dan Snow]

It's weird that the British government And the Chathash hated this so much. Yeah, because it's a bit pagan.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, it's because it's pagan. It's because it's women. And it's because they're getting paid for it. Which is interesting, Right, because certainly in modern Ireland or, you know, 80s 90s Ireland, priests are also getting paid by the family to perform the funeral rites and to do the burial and to all that kind of thing.

[Dan Snow]

But they're dudes, man.

[Anthony Delaney]

But. Yeah, but it's a different set. Clearly they want all the money. Yeah. So they do have this thing where they're trying to rid the kind of folklore again. Look, it's all about control, isn't it? That's what it comes down to. It's like, we can't have this heathenistic pagan ritual going on when we're trying to civilize this. And that comes from the Catholic Church.

[Maddy Pelling]

As well as being stretched because you're now paying for the police. Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

There's less money, which is an issue.

[Dan Snow]

This is a big topic. There's something, isn't there, about Western civilization and, like, the physicality and control and sensuousness. I've been raised choirs. You know, you go to the coronation, everyone is like, bolt upright, stiff upper lip. And there's something that our Western version of modernity is so different. I was watching the women's rugby World cup the other day, and the Pacific Islanders broke out into this incredible dance of fraternity or sisterhood and celebration and at the end of their World cup experience, and I just thought, what's wrong? Like, why did. We came to see that as sort of savage? And I think it's to do with the physicality of it as well. In some ways, it's like being scared of overt sexuality as well.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's almost like overt emotion is too much and the unpredictability that can come from within that emotion. Like, what happens if this community is literally wailing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, what are the things that can occur once that begins?

[Maddy Pelling]

Do you see the Stuart Empire as well and the idea of control? Thinking obviously, in this case about the British Empire, but thinking about, like, the Romans as well. The idea of, like, control, discipline, everything is all. And with the Romans, they have these shows of chaos and emotion, but they're very controlled. They happen within sort of designated public spaces or designated holidays. And, oh, you can go and get absolutely, you know, pissed on this mountain at this point, or you can hack someone to death in the arena, but the rest of the time, you have to live by the rules of society. And I think the British Empire is like that certainly in the 18th and 19th century in Ireland. And maybe that's the Irish then. And that kind of pagan aspect is seen, as you say, Dan, as savage and as uncivilised at the time.

[Dan Snow]

Do you remember that movie, the Northman?

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes. Which was a great movie.

[Dan Snow]

Which is a great movie. And it's been received differently in some different constituencies. But one of the big thing about that movie was they wanted to show white Europeans giving themselves over to wildness. You know, in those hallucinogenic scenes around the fire. I've read about the filmmakers, they want to present white Europeans as capable of those kind of activities and those ways of as other places around the world. And it really made me think of that. And there's something about the journey we've been on which is, as you say, Roman Legion, straitjacket, everyone dressed the same. There's lists. Civilization appears in the West. About sort of binding. Almost literally binding us physically, I think.

[Maddy Pelling]

And intellectually, I suppose, as well, with the keening, there's a kind of. You're saying they're done. About the kind of hallucinogenic aspects in that film. And I'm thinking in that film as well, there's a scene in a burial mound, isn't there, where someone falls into a burial mound to dig in to get a sword or something. And then they have to. There's sort of two versions of it where someone is just buried and dead in there. But then there's another scene where they're alive and they have to fight them for the sword. And there's something. Something about mourning and being close to death and dead bodies. Where in this context, with the keening, it's transgressive. It's almost transformative. It's a spiritual exercise that bridges that gap between life and death. And that kind of hysteria that is sort of brought up, that bubbles up is almost hallucinogenic. It has the same kind of effect on the people doing it and the people around them. And I just wonder if that is an issue as well in Britain, certainly in England, we have this really sanitized version of death. We're going to talk about the wake in Island. We don't have that here generally, you know, we have somebody dies, they go off to the morgue and then.

[Dan Snow]

And you put a suit on.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes, exactly.

[Dan Snow]

Suit on. And like, make small talk when what you want to do is scream.

[Maddy Pelling]

Scream, yeah, exactly.

[Anthony Delaney]

I mean, the one thing I suppose to highlight is that this is not necessarily this unbridled thing. Right. There actually is form and purpose to it as well, and it is grief as an art form.

[Dan Snow]

But I guess the British authorities aren't seeing that.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, they don't understand what they're saying.

[Dan Snow]

There's a. I don't have sophistication, but there's a complexity to this thing.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes, absolutely. And I think. No, sophistication probably is the right thing, especially in the 19th century. And I have an example here from the 18th century, just the very end. This is in Irish, this is in the Gaelic language. And so that's. They're not even understanding. The planters are not even understanding what's happening in this. So this is from 1793. And this is a keen. Is.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

So there is a melody to it, but it's very frequently form and it will change depending on what.

[Maddy Pelling]

And you will now be singing.

[Anthony Delaney]

And I will not be doing it, but I'll read it to you and I'll give you some of it in Irish, just so you can get an idea. It's interesting that we're talking about this, the idea of the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland. This was a song that was keen, that was by Eileen O', Connell, 1793, and it was for her dead husband, who was shot for refusing to undersell his horse to a Protestant. And so what the Irish had to do was sell horses for way, way, way, way, way below their market value. And he didn't. And so he was kill.

[Maddy Pelling]

What?

[Anthony Delaney]

SHE LAMENTS again, I won't do the keen, but I'll give you some of the Irish and then I'll give you the translation. It says, irisuas ashas is tarlem faynawalia go querfin Marta laga go nelfum er kusherg farsing gomeg agwyn kyola spraga gokorigditcha laba fui varlini gyala fui culantia braha braca an vin fig assat alis in innent an fucta A glass case. My own beloved dear. Now get up on your feet and come on home with me. And we will slaughter beef and we'll organize a feast and we'll have music playing and I'll make you a bed with clean white sheets with colored patchwork quilts to make you sweat with heat instead of this awful cold. So she's really, you know, talking about she's going to be missing this person from the mundanity of everyday life. But it's this appeal, isn't it? It's something so earthy and so forlorn that she has to lament it into the.

[Maddy Pelling]

And it's transcendent again. Right. She's asking this corpse to get up and come home with her and slaughter the beef. And she's made the bed and it's all full of white sheets. It's all beautiful. She's like, haunt me. Don't be dead. Yeah. Eventually, like, come back with me in whatever form. It's. Wow. I mean, that's incredible.

[Anthony Delaney]

And they could vary from coffin side to coffin side. Obviously, this is very particular to that. So there is this sense of improvisation that can go on too, as well. You have to think of it in terms of the Irish music tradition, which, again, was very. Not necessarily written down, but was passed on orally. And this is feeding into that same tradition. The melodies can change, the whale can change, but there is always a crying element. So you get that. That's a little bit more structured, and then you get the more free form, which is the cry to the gods, essentially, which is, you know, bring down this earth. Because I am. I am suffering so much. And we are suffering so much. But it's also performative. They're being paid in certain aspects.

[Dan Snow]

In our culture, we pay people to represent us legally. I mean, it's funny. Why are these people not allowed to be paid? Everyone else allows me paid for everything else.

[Anthony Delaney]

There's death, you know, and it's actually a part of that. It's helping with the grieving process in many ways.

[Maddy Pelling]

You bring death doulas up every episode.

[Anthony Delaney]

I love a death doula.

[Maddy Pelling]

I love to be a death doula.

[Anthony Delaney]

I could see myself as a death doula. I could do it.

[Maddy Pelling]

You could definitely do it.

[Anthony Delaney]

And I have been with people because, again, we're talking about this Irish thing about death. I have been with people, one person, when they have died. And there's something very. It's such a privilege to be with somebody when they're dying. I just think we sanitize that process a little bit less in Ireland, and it's much, much quicker than it is here. But it comes from this. It comes from proximity to death, where people are around a body and taking care of that body themselves as much as they can in this day and age.

[Dan Snow]

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[Anthony Delaney]

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[Dan Snow]

It's funny, we keep talking about, well, are being paid, as if that makes less authentic. Organists are paid today in funerals and they move the audience to tears. There's. There's certain choirs at weddings that shouldn't be in any way, that shouldn't take away from the power and the immediacy of what they're delivering.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, I mean, as you say, organists are paid. Other people are paid in this process. Priests are paid.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

So to pay people around death is perfectly legitimate. But to pay women who are rural, relatively poor, who are women in the context of, say, the 18th, 19th century, and to also put them in such close proximity to really important life stage as well, not something that you want to hand over too easily because there's control in that, there's power in that, there's influence in that.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, I mean, this idea of the women versus the priests, I think is really interesting because you have the women in some cases, in the example you've just given us, writing their own keening lyrics, would you call them lyrics? The words of the lament. And so, you know, in that case, in the one that we heard, she's calling for the corpse to rise from the dead. How does that sit with the priest who's then saying, you know, this is what's happening to the soul. This is what's happening. Now I'm explaining to you all who don't understand it. I have the power to explain this, what's going on.

[Dan Snow]

It's also going to rise, but in a completely different way.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There is a rising, but it's not like this completely.

[Dan Snow]

It's not the same.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, well, it's that pagan thing, isn't it? And actually the church in Ireland really struggles with this over centuries where it's going. There is too many talks of fairies and ghosts and banshees. This is not.

[Maddy Pelling]

Stop it.

[Anthony Delaney]

And as a result, they are very draconian in Ireland to such an extent. That Even in the 20th century, the church in Rome is saying, lads, calm down. That's too much. You're being too much. Like that filters into Ireland from Rome, where they're going, this is.

[Maddy Pelling]

Even.

[Anthony Delaney]

We're not happy with this. So they really are trying to stamp that out, but it hasn't worked. And then, you know, we talk about when keening kind of ends in the 20th century at the very beginning, but by the 1940s, there's this Gaelic revival going on again. And we see Gaelic revivals all the time. There's one happening in Ireland right now, like the Irish language is really flourishing in Ireland again. And this idea of keening comes back and a celebration and an acknowledgement of what that was comes back in the 1940s as well.

[Dan Snow]

Have you got keening now today? Is that part of the revival?

[Anthony Delaney]

I've never seen. I've been to my fair share of wakes and I've never. If I. If I walked into that and I saw that happening, I think I'd be fascinated to see that now, if. I think if you were. If you were looking for it, the place to go would be the west of Ireland. But my family are living in the southeast, so I've never encountered it, but I would. I would be thrilled if I walked into a wake and saw that happening.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. Write in if you're.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, please do.

[Anthony Delaney]

Let us know after here.

[Maddy Pelling]

Let's talk about the wake, then. Because this is what fascinates me as someone who's grown up in England, and my experience of funerals are very much not this. We don't sit with the body for several days. We don't have it in the house.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

So can you explain? Because I find this so moving as well as interesting. I think this is really important and I'm sad that we don't have it here, but tell us about this.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, it's also exhausting. I mean, that's one of the other things to say. So the wake is becoming a shorter process in Ireland now, But in the 19th century, into the early 20th century, it was over two nights. And so you would sit with the body in the coffin, but that's actually even an added thing up until maybe the last 20, 30 years. What you get now is that we sit around the coffin and you might be there for two days, but what used to happen is the corpse would be laid out, maybe even in the bed. They'd be dressed in a suit, or they could be in a shawl, depending on what time period you're looking at. Or they could be laid out on a table and people would just gather around. So it's very much this, like, proximity to death, where you are surrounding this body. And then there are rituals that need to be observed. And for instance, I was with my granny when she died a few years back. I don't. I can't remember now, five or six years ago, I suppose it is. And I was in the room and other members of my family were in the room and we were sitting with her. And as soon as she died. And this is, you know, this is in the 21st century, as soon as she died, my mum was like, went to the window and opened the window. Because that's one of those things. You let the soul out. You don't trap the soul in the room at the instant of death. We didn't do this. But older traditions are the clocks all get stopped, mirrors are all covered. So time starts to lose meaning. And that was very much around in the 20th century. I haven't experienced it. We don't do that now. But certainly up until the family did open the window. But the family did open the window, you would still see some places that mirrors get covered. So you'll put a black drape over the mirrors.

[Maddy Pelling]

And why the mirror covering is that? To sort of dissuade vanity in that moment? Because you're meant to be reflecting on something else. Is it something about the mirror as a portal? Think about lighting the spirit.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's that. It's the mirror as a portal. You're not allowing the soul to get trapped anywhere. So that's why the windows are open. You know, the way you do the. What is it divining or the scrying? I think it is, isn't it, where you look in the mirror and you bring forth forth souls or ghosts, whatever it might be. So it's not to trap them in there. So it's this kind of. There's. It's this quasi magic element that's going on. Quasi, you know. Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it. And it really, really persists. As I say, this was five or six years ago and that window had to be opened. So it's. It's. Oh, and one of the ones that I really like is. Don't ask me how this would happen, but I guess it would in. In the 18th, in the 19th century. If it hence flies over the corpse, that hen has to be killed instantly.

[Maddy Pelling]

That's so specific.

[Anthony Delaney]

It is like, I mean, what are you gonna do justice for the hens? But. And again, it's this thing about. I think my understanding of it is it's the transfer of soul. You do not want that soul jumping into that hen.

[Maddy Pelling]

You don't want grandma walking around as a.

[Dan Snow]

No, no, no, no.

[Anthony Delaney]

The fox is gonna kill her. So, yeah, it's interesting to think about, you know, there's something leaving you. We have to be really careful about where that something goes.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, yeah. Dan, you have Irish family, right? Have you ever been to an Irish wake?

[Dan Snow]

I have not been to a. Into a bastardized, modern Irish way, which is very sad in Ireland, in Dublin.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dan Snow]

I feel I'm not the right person.

[Anthony Delaney]

Around the table to talk about Irish way tradition, but, you know, but I.

[Dan Snow]

Appreciated immediately the sense that everyone knew what to do. And I think we, England in the UK have lost. And I say, I see this with my Jewish friends. I see it with friends elsewhere in the world. Everyone kind of goes, oh, there's been a death. And then everything kind of. Some people bring food, some people do this, some people open a bottle or something, you know, and we all just go, wow. I don't know. It's capitalism. Has the markets shattered our ability to remember? Because presumably we used to do things as a community.

[Maddy Pelling]

You were talking earlier about that kind of formality that we're bound by in English culture, and I think we've lost the rehearsal of that. We don't have that in everyday life. Like, we don't know what to do necessarily as a society, but we're still clinging to it. And so when we go to an event like that, we're like, well, we have to be formed. Does anyone know what the rules are, this formality?

[Dan Snow]

We're in the worst of both worlds. You've inherited a strange Edwardian formality.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. We're like, we mustn't show any emotion. But we don't know.

[Dan Snow]

We don't know what. Because presumably that served its own purpose and perhaps that did give strength and. Yeah, yeah. But instead we've now lost. Yeah, we're between two.

[Anthony Delaney]

For me, the thing that is so alien in death culture over here is the time that you guys take to bury the dead. It feels almost cruel to me when I see it unfold, because you have weeks between the person dying and being, you know, strange is it's a really strange time.

[Maddy Pelling]

And it's a kind of limbo time as well.

[Anthony Delaney]

Right?

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah. Sort of happen. Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

But then you have to take time off again, and life is moving, but it's not okay.

[Dan Snow]

So the wake, the two nights thing, so presumably this is part of the burials. Part of the. So you go, what, it's two nights?

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, it's probably.

[Dan Snow]

And then the burial happens.

[Anthony Delaney]

And then the. So it used to be like. It used to be two nights of awake. A funeral which would happen like 11 o' clock on the day and then a burial the following day. So it'd be like a four day event. And you know, you're not doing anything during those time. That time apart from, you know, your drinking is part of the. Was part of the culture more so than it is now. But certainly there is drink at funerals now. There was pipes passed around which would be given out over the body. You know, I'm talking about quite a few pipes. Corpse pipes, I think they were called. And it was, you know, this was just part of the. And when you take the pipe you have to say lord of mercy. So you're like smoking for the dead person, you know, for their soul.

[Maddy Pelling]

Gave me flashbacks. Like church, peace beworthy people.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, yeah. Very bad.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dan Snow]

What did they die of? Oh, lung cancer.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's what they would have wanted. And so it is. But one of the things we're talking about drinking, one of the things that would have happened and I have never experienced this, so this is going to be my first Irish outing. Over the body would be drinking of. Well, many things, but pochin specifically. And it just so happens. Well, not for Maddie.

[Maddy Pelling]

Today. I've sniffed it. That's as close as I'm getting, unfortunately.

[Anthony Delaney]

We're gonna try some. This is actual alcohol. What time is it? We're recording this at half ten in the morning. Just to let everybody know, Anthony's had.

[Maddy Pelling]

Four shots of this.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. Smell it before we go.

[Dan Snow]

Wowee.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's very fruity. Right. Pass me your glass.

[Maddy Pelling]

What's the measure of this?

[Anthony Delaney]

I'm gonna do a shot measure. Right, that's.

[Maddy Pelling]

I would say that's pretty generous.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, is it?

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, I'd say.

[Anthony Delaney]

Tell you how much, how many shots I'm doing in this day and age. Right? We're gonna try it. And I, I. Have you tasted pochin before?

[Dan Snow]

I have.

[Maddy Pelling]

Have you?

[Anthony Delaney]

Actually. Okay, slow. Slauncher.

[Dan Snow]

Slauncher.

[Maddy Pelling]

Oh, straight down.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh my God. It was a lot.

[Maddy Pelling]

That's.

[Anthony Delaney]

It was a lot.

[Dan Snow]

You just embarrassed me there. I was a sippy. I took it as a sippy.

[Anthony Delaney]

It was a lot.

[Dan Snow]

Anthony's just slagged it. If you're watching this, if you're listening to this on the audio version.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh wow. That was a lot.

[Dan Snow]

It's a bit vodka, isn't it? But fruitier.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yes. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. As I try to regain some form of composure. Why did I drink the whole thing? Am I supposed to drink the whole thing?

[Maddy Pelling]

And can I just say as well to everyone listening that we have, I think four or five more episodes to go today.

[Anthony Delaney]

Paint stripper is what that is. Anyway.

[Maddy Pelling]

So that's taken over the body.

[Anthony Delaney]

That's taken over the body and it. Listen, this is a very safe and distilled version of this. But people are brewing this at home. It can be really, really strong as.

[Maddy Pelling]

A major in alcohol.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh my God, no.

[Dan Snow]

Is it potato based?

[Anthony Delaney]

It can be so barley originally, but then potato. Anything starchy sometimes there was elements of fruit going in there, but it was. The history of pocin in itself is so interesting because of all people, Charles II outlaws it in Ireland. And yeah, you would imagine he'd be bring on the poutine. Get it over meal, please. No, he bans it because of it's so popular. He wants the tax from it and it's not taxable, so he bans it. But as a result it actually takes on this other life of its own where people are going, we're holding onto this because they've told us we cannot.

[Maddy Pelling]

It becomes a symbol of defiance. That's interesting.

[Dan Snow]

And yeah, it's also interesting that sometimes we approach these subjects with the sort of reverence for this ancient tradition. Actually tobacco relatively recently introduced, you know, in the last 400 years, if it was potato based porcini, again post Colombian food exchange. So actually we'd be wrong to say of approach this as we. As we do Stonehenge or something. These traditions are alive, they're evolving throughout Irish history.

[Anthony Delaney]

I think that's really interesting to say that they're alive and they're evolving because I get a sense of that even now that they're alive and that they're evolving. And it's interesting because the younger people are moving away from maybe some of the more like for instance, one of the things that's so popular with my parents generation in Ireland is Rip ie. So if you haven't heard of this, it's essentially Facebook for the dead. So as soon as somebody dies, their profile goes up on RIP ie. Ie is like our.co.uk or.com and their picture is up there. As we were preparing for this, I got Freddie, our producer to go on and look up my granny's profile on Rip ie. Because everybody goes, everybody goes on.

[Maddy Pelling]

There are these updated or is this just like a notice board of like grannies?

[Dan Snow]

Now you get the user generated content. Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

So it's where the funeral is going to be. It's whether or not they're having the wake at the home or wherever it is. It's whether or not it's at the funeral home. But then you get to leave comments. Comments. So the people in the community or people who are can't make it to the funeral, they all leave and people.

[Maddy Pelling]

Can put in the comments. Well, this one time Anthony really wronged me.

[Anthony Delaney]

It has. Oh yeah, good. Well done. It has happened that there has. There are moderators and things have had to be removed and people have had to be removed. If it's getting too much.

[Maddy Pelling]

Okay, I know what I'm doing when I get home generally.

[Anthony Delaney]

But generally speaking, yeah, but younger people are kind of not doing that so much. But this element element is very much still present. The wake element is still very much present. So that's not going. We haven't really embraced the funeral homeness thing in the same way that it happens. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely funeral home wakes and funerals, but we're still very much waking in the house and getting very drunk in the process, which has been going on since the 6th century or whatever it is. So, you know, it's an ancient tradition we stick to quite proudly.

[Dan Snow]

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[Maddy Pelling]

Okay, so you've done the wake.

[Anthony Delaney]

I have.

[Maddy Pelling]

You're quite drunk. Yeah, for the two days. Done the tobacco and all of that. We then need to take the coffin to the church for the funeral. Talk to me about funeral roads because I find this fascinating, this idea of carrying the body. And I know in Ireland you're not meant to put the coffin down, right. Because this is very different in England. I used to live on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and there they've got corpse roads where they have corpse or coffin stones along the road because it's such a vast place and you would, you know, it's so remote you'd have to walk potentially several miles to take farmer, whatever from this valley to the church there that you would need to put it down along the way. And they're all still in place and you can, I think they're still used in some instances. So. But this is not the case in Ireland. Right. It's very, very, very bad to put the coffin down.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah. You don't be putting the coffin down now. Can I ask you a question before I answer any of this? Have you ever either of you carried a coffin?

[Maddy Pelling]

No.

[Anthony Delaney]

No. Okay. I don't know if it's way more usual in Ireland, but I've carried a few coffins at this point and coffins.

[Maddy Pelling]

Were you invited too?

[Anthony Delaney]

No, I just infiltrated the thing. No, they were both grandparents. It's a very strange thing when you stop and think about it. You are. So you're joining somebody else's shoulder and the coffin sits there.

[Maddy Pelling]

It gives me so much anxiety, the idea of it slipping off.

[Anthony Delaney]

No, really, it is, it's very anxiety inducing and some people are kind of, please don't make me do this. But there is this kind of Pressure to carry your dead. So we still do this to a certain extent. So, for instance, when one of my grannies died, the church is not that far away, but she lives down a lane. And so up that driveway. We carried her up until we were at the road. And then she got into the car, or. Well, we put her into the car and then she drove literally two and a half minutes to the church. Like we could have. Oh, no, we carried her to the whole way. We carried that granny the whole way. The other one was driven.

[Maddy Pelling]

She a bit heavier.

[Anthony Delaney]

She was further away. And so there is this carrying that we still do. But traditionally now this wouldn't happen anymore. Yes, you're right, Maddie. You can't leave the coffin down on grass. But you can leave it down if you put some kind of a sheet underneath it. But if you leave it on the grass. If you leave it on the grass, the grass becomes what's called hungry grass or corpse grass. But the actual translation from Irish is that it's the Hungry man, actually, is how it translates. And that grass then needs to be cleansed and it needs to be.

[Maddy Pelling]

Why? What will happen to it?

[Anthony Delaney]

I'm not sure what the implication is.

[Maddy Pelling]

But is that the egg, like a grave in itself?

[Anthony Delaney]

I don't know. I really don't know. It doesn't make sense to a certain extent, but you're not supposed to have it and you're not supposed to let your animals eat it. But it has to be dealt with and it has to be kind of purified. So you can put holy water on it as one way to do it. There are other ways as well. So you're not supposed to have it down. And also, by the way, there's another. Yeah, it's referred to as the far. Goethe. That's the Hungry or the Famished man or whatever. And to counter this, you have to eat something over that piece of grass or put holy water on it. So, like, you could eat.

[Maddy Pelling]

No, we'll say, you know.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I've never seen a coffin put down, though, really. I've never seen that happen.

[Dan Snow]

I suppose I haven't either.

[Anthony Delaney]

I mean, it's not sort of odd.

[Dan Snow]

To just leave it. I mean, it's different in a rural culture. I've only ever seen them back out the car into the old.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's not far to go.

[Anthony Delaney]

And how do you do it over here in turn, terms of, like, getting out of the car up to the front of the church. How is that coffin transported?

[Dan Snow]

Carried. Carried.

[Anthony Delaney]

Carried. So it's the same. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

But often it is the funerary company who does it. It's not always. Sometimes it's family who carry it. It depends, I suppose, on the situation. Also, you need family members who are all roughly the same height as well to do it. Otherwise that's going to be an issue.

[Anthony Delaney]

And in Ireland, women often don't carry the coffin, but more and more they're doing it now, but because of that, you know, they put all different things. A woman should be carrying the coffin. But actually it's about height. It's a practicality where suddenly you're like this. But also we lower the coffin into the ground. Like I lowered my granny into the.

[Maddy Pelling]

Ground again, the anxiety that is giving me.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh, I nearly went in after her. I was like, not because. Not in a dramatic way, just. And I was like, oh, my God, this is heavy. And, you know, you have the things in your hands that you're lowering down into the ground. So it is. And it does feel like a lot of responsibility, but everyone's just doing it. And you have the undertaker beside you going, stand back up straight. You need to ground yourself a little bit more. He is directing this because he's used to it. This is a really skilled professional. Just to bring this up as a. Well, you are not allowed, say, for instance, you were on your way to the church. By the way, some of these corpse roads are incred. There's one in Kilkenny that we walk the dogs on when we're home. They're beautiful, they are serene. They are in the countryside. There is a little route through. It's like a little path, but they're often enclosed with trees. So it's really, really stunning. But you're not allowed to part the funeral party, so you have to stay together because if you do, you're going to bring on another death in the parish. So you have to stay together. Why you'd be partying, I don't know. I don't know where that group of people are going.

[Maddy Pelling]

Because someone's seen the comments on the rip.

[Dan Snow]

Rip.

[Maddy Pelling]

Facebook.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, you know, and I know we're here and we're talking about it in quite a light way and we're, you know, it is. There is an element of, I suppose now fun to us, but actually think about what this is doing to community cohesion, to honoring the dead, to helping the living deal with grief, to have that process through which we have to hit these markers and we're doing it. It's not necessarily the undertaker. And by the way, you know, up until relatively recently, people weren't even embalmed. And this goes for, you know, in the 20th century. There are some horrendous stories that I've heard and I know a family that this happened to where the corpse started. It was a particularly hot day and things got unpleasant and people had to leave the house because, you know, and that's in my lifetime. So the sanitization of death, though, is coming into Ireland. But we still do the wake. My granny had a moment during her wake. That's how many people were there, because she has a family of 11. So, like, there was so many people coming from all over the country and all over the world actually, that we needed to add on. It was like a wedding except, you know, less dancing. Not no dancing. There was some dancing.

[Maddy Pelling]

Did you dance?

[Anthony Delaney]

I didn't dance.

[Maddy Pelling]

No, of course not.

[Anthony Delaney]

Other people did. Yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

You're happy to carry the coffee, but not happy to dance.

[Dan Snow]

And I celebrate that.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, yeah. Listen, it really does help because by the end of it, you're actually exhausted and you're ready for the person to go on the ground because you're a bit like, I need to sleep, I need to have time to myself. I've been surrounded by 1400 people for the last however many days. I need to withdraw now and I need to deal with that grief in another way. In some ways, it kind of delays grief a little bit because you have a job to do over the course of those few days. But at the same time, you are surrounded by community. It is not a lonesome or a lonely activity. It is the time when actually you are held up and you're bound together by this thing that the community comes together for. So again, the younger generation probably kind of go, oh, God, we have to go to awake, cringe. But actually, what it's doing in terms of community formation, it's important. There's a lot to be said for it.

[Dan Snow]

Nothing, definitely. When they're the dead ones.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, well, yeah, they'll expect it. Yeah. Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, this is the thing, our grandparents generation, the wakes are huge. Like, again, my granny had stadium lighting during her wake. We needed to have stadium lighting and overflow car parks. But for my parents generation, I think that's gonna. You'll see that to come down a little bit because I just don't think we're gonna do that in the same way. Yeah, it's probably going to filter down a little bit. So there's fewer families with. Exactly, yeah. With 11 people. So, yeah, it's a strange, strange thing. But I kind of love it. It's wondrous and very dramatic. And I love that about Ireland. Ireland's very dramatic. Like, you know, we do a good line in drama. So yeah, I like it.

[Maddy Pelling]

Before we go, I want to hear one last superstition from the wake. And I think you have a little bit of a story to tell us now.

[Anthony Delaney]

I do, I do. Am I going to do my Shamaki accent for this? Okay, let's see.

[Maddy Pelling]

We would expect nothing less.

[Anthony Delaney]

Oh God, I've been drinking now. And this is what's going to happen. Okay, I'm about to tell you a little story. A little scale. And it is death related. And there is a recurring noise. And nobody actually definitely knows the answer to this. But I'd like you to tell me what you think the noise in this, this little story is. So it goes like this. One night, a man named James o' Donnell was coming home from awake at the hour of 9 o'.

[Dan Snow]

Clock.

[Anthony Delaney]

He often heard his father and mother say that it was not right to come from a wake by yourself. But as he was a courageous man, he said he would go alone. He left the wake house by himself and went up through a field, making for his own house, whistling away. When he was just a few fields from his house, he heard great hammering beside him. The night was dark and that made his fear was worse. The hammering continued loud in his ear. When he was one field away from his house, he called out to his own dog. But when the dog came, it saw something that the man did not see and put its tail between its two legs and ran up home. The hammering kept going until he reached his own door and closed it. Then it stopped. He went straight to his bed. Bed. And did not leave it alive. Dan and Maddie, what was that? Hammering.

[Maddy Pelling]

Time to play.

[Amy Brown]

Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah.

[Maddy Pelling]

Dan, any guesses?

[Dan Snow]

I think it was his. He drank a lot.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

And he was staggering up a hill and you know, you can hear your heartbeat. Ears. And he had a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

[Maddy Pelling]

Oh, wow.

[Anthony Delaney]

Dad's going science with this.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah, I'm afraid so. From boozing and climbing up a hill in the middle of the night.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

Listen, I'm happy to accept a medical explanation for this, Maddy.

[Maddy Pelling]

Oh, 100% supernatural, obviously.

[Anthony Delaney]

Obviously.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah.

[Anthony Delaney]

Go on. What is it?

[Maddy Pelling]

No, I mean, he's. Okay. So he's walking. What is he. He's walking through fields. Is it just the wind in the trees? Something like that? Sticks. Knocking together.

[Anthony Delaney]

I mean, I'm asking you, is it his own boots? There is no actual answer. But I'll tell you what I think it is from my interpretation of this, I think he's hearing the nails in his own coffin.

[Dan Snow]

Oh.

[Maddy Pelling]

Okay. That makes a lot of sense.

[Anthony Delaney]

So he's here. He's foretelling his own death because he. Remember I said we don't pair off. Yeah. We have to stay. Is it this Irish goodbye thing? Apparently don't do that. You might. And I love an Irish goodbye where I just disappear. But if you're out of wake, don't say that. You are the king of an Irish goodbye. Like, bye guys. I'm not even gonna tell you. So yeah, I think he's hearing the nails in his own coffin that night. And actually, you know, if you think about it, there is often times in the past where the families would make the coffin. So it's like almost as you near your own house. He's hearing what potentially is coming around the corner. Cause this is an old story, this isn't modern. So. Yes. So that's what I hear it as, the nails in his coffin.

[Dan Snow]

I think you're probably right.

[Maddy Pelling]

Lovely. Well, if you've enjoyed this episode, then you can leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcast. Dan, thank you very much for joining us.

[Dan Snow]

Hey, thanks so much, guys. That was epic.

[Maddy Pelling]

It really was. And nice to revisit some Irish history after last year's success with Irish what do we do? The Irish origins of Halloween.

[Anthony Delaney]

Yeah, that was it. And now I've seen that everywhere now. By the way, we started a trend.

[Dan Snow]

Absolutely. I mean people, it's just become a common assumption that all starts in Ireland.

[Anthony Delaney]

And it started here.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yeah, we did, we, we began that. You can get in touch with us if you want to suggest episodes Irish related or otherwise atafterdarkhistoryhit.com See you next time.

[Anthony Delaney]

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