Ancient Irish Funeral Traditions

Summary

Dan Snow's History Hit

Episode: Ancient Irish Funeral Traditions

Release Date: October 31, 2025
Guests: Dr. Anthony Delaney, Dr. Maddie Pelling

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Overview

In this special Halloween episode, Dan Snow explores the rich, dramatic, and sometimes contentious traditions of Irish funerals—from ancient keening rituals performed by women, to wakes filled with both grief and community, to corpse roads and superstitions that persist even today. Joined by historians Dr. Anthony Delaney and Dr. Maddie Pelling, Dan dives deeply into how Irish communities have faced death for millennia, what these customs meant for those living through them, and why they persist or change over time.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Origins and Practice of Keening

Start: 04:22

• Keening Defined:
  • Keening refers to highly formalized laments performed by women at Irish funerals, involving wailing, singing, and even playful or critical remembrances of the deceased.
  • “The word comes from 'queena', or 'quincah', which means to cry. So it's all about crying, lamenting…” – Anthony (04:30)
• Gender and Performance:
  • Only women were traditionally keeners—linked to the mythic banshee and gender roles around expression of grief.
  • “It's more acceptable that the women are absolutely losing their shit beside the grave than it is that men are doing it.” – Anthony (06:29)
• Social and Political Suppression:
  • Both the British state and the Catholic Church sought to eliminate keening in the 19th century, viewing it as pagan and subversive.
  • “It's because it's pagan, it's because it's women, and it's because they're getting paid for it.” – Anthony (06:53)

2. The Cultural Clash: Public Emotion vs. Control

Start: 07:36

• Connections drawn to the “Western” discomfort with overt emotional displays, contrasted with the more physical, sensuous traditions of ancient (and rural) Ireland.
• “Our western version of modernity… is so different.” – Dan (07:36)
• Suppressing public grief as a form of colonial or religious discipline:
  • “They can't have this heathenistic pagan ritual going on when we're trying to civilize this.” – Anthony (07:12)
• Comparison to Roman practices—chaos in designated spaces but control in everyday life.

3. Keening as Art, Tradition, and Protest

Start: 10:29

• Keening is Grief as an Art Form:
  • Keening has distinct forms and improvisations—akin to oral Irish music traditions.
• Memorable Moment:
  • Anthony reads a translated keening from Eileen O’Connell (1793) for her executed husband, capturing the earthy sorrow and longing of the tradition.
  • “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…” – Anthony (12:53)

4. Paid Mourning and Power

Start: 13:43

• Debate about paying for ritual lament—priests, organists, and “death doulas” versus keeners.
• Paying women for this role brought them close to power and influence during pivotal life transitions, which was threatening to the church/state.
  • “To pay women who are rural, relatively poor…to also put them in such close proximity to really important life stage…there's control in that, there's power in that, there's influence in that.” – Anthony (14:47)

5. The Irish Wake: Ritual, Community, and Change

Start: 16:54 & 22:42

• Traditional Wake Practices:
  • Corpse laid out for two nights; family, friends, and neighbors gather around the body—proximity to death is striking.
  • Customs included stopping clocks, covering mirrors, and opening windows to let the soul out. Hens flying over a corpse had to be killed, lest the soul “transfer.”
    • “As soon as she died, my mum went to the window and opened the window. Because that's one of those things. You let the soul out.” – Anthony (17:54)
  • Ritual drinking: Passing around pipes, drinking poitín (strong clear spirit) over the corpse.
    • Memorable moment: The team toasts with poitín at 25:33, humorously noting its strength—“Pain stripper is what that is.” – Maddie (25:57)
• Modernization & Decline:
  • Wakes are shorter today, fewer traditional rituals kept, especially with urbanization; however, the sense of community persists.
  • Use of RIP.ie—memorial websites echoing the communal aspects of traditional mourning.

6. Corpse Roads & Superstitions

Start: 28:54

• Corpse Roads:
  • Special routes from home to church for funeral processions.
  • It is considered very bad luck in Ireland to put the coffin down on the ground (unless on a cloth); otherwise, the grass becomes “hungry grass” (“fear gorta”)—a cursed spot.
  • “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…the grass becomes what's called hungry grass.” – Anthony (30:19)
• Community Procession:
  • Family members, not just professionals, traditionally carry and lower the coffin; women now beginning to participate more.
  • The procession must remain together—splitting the funeral party invites another death into the community.

7. Superstition and Storytelling: The Noisy Omen

Start: 38:15

• Anthony tells a ghostly story of a man who hears hammering noises after leaving a wake alone; discusses interpretations—medical, mundane, or supernatural.
  • Anthony suggests, “I think he's hearing the nails in his own coffin.” (40:46)
  • Emphasizes the Irish tradition of storytelling and the enduring power of ritual warnings: Do not leave a wake alone, lest you court misfortune.

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Notable Quotes & Segments

• On Keening:
  “It is grief as an art form.” – Anthony (10:29)
• On Suppression:
  “To pay women who are rural, relatively poor…that's not something you want to hand over too easily. Because there’s control in that, there's power in that, there's influence in that.” – Anthony (14:47)
• On Tradition’s Evolution:
  “These traditions are alive. They're evolving throughout Irish history.” – Dan (26:48)
• On Community and Loss:
  “It is not a lonesome or a lonely activity. It is the time when actually you're held up, and you're bound together by this thing…” – Anthony (37:28)
• On Modern Funeral Culture:
  “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…” – Anthony (23:36)
• On Ritual, Story, and Warning:
  “I think he's hearing the nails in his own coffin.” – Anthony (40:46)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Topic | Timestamps | |-------------------------------------------|--------------| | Podcast intro & context | 02:09–04:22 | | Keening: Origins & practice | 04:22–07:53 | | Cultural clash: Emotion & control | 07:53–09:30 | | Keening as art and protest | 10:29–13:43 | | Paid mourning & gender, tradition | 13:43–15:59 | | The wake: rituals & modernization | 16:54–22:02 | | Personal anecdotes on wakes | 22:42–25:00 | | Poitín drinking tradition | 25:01–26:48 | | Wakes in the digital age (RIP.ie) | 27:09–28:51 | | Corpse roads & "hungry grass" superstition| 28:54–32:05 | | Community, loss, and ritual purpose | 35:36–37:28 | | Storytelling: The hammering omen | 38:15–41:26 |

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Memorable Moments

• The team samples poitín together, expressing the shock of its strength and connecting it back with funeral traditions. (25:35–25:59)
• Anthony recounting the keening of Eileen O’Connell, merging folklore, politics, and personal grief. (11:08–12:53)
• Discussion of RIP.ie as “modern keening,” and the saga of moderating funeral comments, blending old tradition with new digital spaces. (27:49–28:20)
• Anthony’s folktale about the hammering omen and group speculation about its meaning. (39:00–41:26)

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Conclusion

This lively, evocative episode combines personal recollection, scholarship, humor, and just the right amount of spookiness. The conversation brings out how ancient Irish funerary traditions—from keening, wakes, and corpse roads to superstitions and storytelling—continue to shape collective identity and the processing of loss. Modern innovations coexist with old rituals, offering comfort, continuity, and community in the face of death.

Transcript

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[C]

Hi folks. Welcome down to Knows History hit if you have kids or if you have a podcast producer who is obsessed with autumn fall like I do, it would have passed you by that today is Halloween. Last year we did an episode that everyone seemed to love. With our good friends over on the After Dark podcast, Dr. Anthony Delaney and Dr. Maddy Pelling, we talked about the Irish origins of Hallo. We looked at Samhain, the pagan festival that marks the end of the Celtic harvest season, the beginning of winter, when they believed that the veil between the world of the living and of the dead was at its thinnest. We carved turnips, which was the OG vegetable used to make jack o' lanterns. None this pumpkin nonsense. They ward off evil spirits, obviously. We tried an Irish barmbrack cake, a sort of cake with raisins and sultanas in it, which I absolutely loved. Now a key part of my Halloween celebrations. And you can find a link to that episode in the show notes. And after we went live with that episode, now everyone talks about Irish Halloween. It's just we moved the Overton window there, folks. I'm taking full credit. And since we're back in spooky season now, I thought we'd get the gang together, the old team together, to give you another lesson in ancient Irish history. This is the story of how people in Ireland have approached death and grief for millennia, and the story of how they faced persecution for it. The story we're telling on today's episode is of ancient Gaelic burial traditions. Keening, for example. The Keening women, as they're known, were ritual mourners in the Gaelic tradition. And they would wail, they'd sing a lament to express grief on behalf of bereaved family and community. In the 19th century, this was thought to be so transgressive that both the British government and, remarkably, the Catholic Church, working hand in glove for a change, sought to eliminate it entirely. Keening women faced public humiliation, whipping, beating and excommunication, from the long and winding corpse roads to the folklore curse of hungry grass. Today I'm joined by Maddie and Anthony to dig into the history of ancient and pretty recent Irish funerary rite.

[G]

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

[C]

I've never seen it. You hear the expression, I didn't know it was actually a thing?

[D]

Yeah, 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 really dramatic thing to see. But let's kind of talk about some of the ins and outs of it. The word comes from egqueena, 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 place in the west of Ireland. So it really is a traditional, traditional mourning ritual.

[G]

So. Okay, I have a lot of questions.

[D]

Go on.

[G]

First of all, so you're telling me that if you've done something a bit dodgy in your life, that the keening women will bring that up?

[D]

It can be. It can be. It can be part of the lament. And there are different forms to 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 a little bit more of a oh, we're going to miss you kind of thing.

[G]

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

[D]

Yeah, yeah, I've heard recordings.

[C]

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

[D]

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 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.

[G]

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

[D]

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.

[C]

It's weird that the British government and the Carthage hated this so much.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

Just because It's a bit pagan.

[D]

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 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.

[C]

They're dudes, man.

[D]

But. Yeah, but it's a different set. Clearly they want all the money. Yeah. So they do have this 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 capitalism and.

[G]

The budget is being stretched because you're now paying for the priesthood. Yeah.

[D]

There's less money, which is an issue. Yeah.

[C]

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, 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.

[D]

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, getting a bit fizzy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, what are the things that can occur once that begins, do you think?

[G]

A studh 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 ordered. And with the Romans, they have these shows of chaos and emotion, but they're very. They happen within 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 savage and as uncivilized at the time because.

[C]

Do you remember that movie the Northman?

[D]

Yes. Which was a great movie.

[C]

Which was 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. And I 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, almost literally binding us physically, I think, and intellectually.

[G]

I suppose, as well, with the keening. There's a kind of. You're saying there, Dan, 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 or they dig in to get a sword or something. 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 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 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 sanitised version of death. And 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 they put suit on. Yes, exactly.

[C]

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

[G]

Scream. Yeah, exactly.

[D]

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. It is grief as an art form. And I just want to read you here some of the.

[C]

I guess the British authorities aren't seeing that.

[D]

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

[C]

There's a. I don't know if sophistication or. But there's a complexity to this.

[D]

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 the planters are not even understanding what's happening in this. So this is from 1793.

[G]

This is the song.

[D]

This is a keen is. Yeah. So there is a melody to it, but it's very free form and it will change depending on.

[G]

And you will now be singing, and.

[D]

I will not be doing it, but I'll read it to you and I'll give you some of it in, just so you can get an idea. And actually, it's interesting that we're talking about this, the idea of the Protestant descendancy in Ireland. This was a song that was a 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 the native Irish for way below their market value. And he didn't, and so he was killed. And this is what 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. The translation. It says, maghra to Godangan is irisua seshasov is tarlem fain awalya gawkorfin Marta laga go nelfum er kushur farsing go meg agwyn kyola spraga go korig dicha laba fui varlini Gyala fui culantia braha braca on vinfig assat alis in innid an fucta a glasges my own beloved dear. Now get up on your feet and come, 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. Yeah, it's this appeal, isn't it? It's something so earthy and so forlorn that she has to lament it into the.

[G]

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, hold on to me. Don't be dead. Yeah. Eventually, like, come back with me in whatever form. Wow. I mean, that's incredible.

[D]

Yeah. 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 suffering so much, and we are suffering so much. But it's also performative. They're being paid in certain aspects of this.

[C]

I'm just thinking 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.

[D]

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

[G]

Bring death doulas up every episode.

[D]

I love a death doula.

[G]

I have to be a death doula.

[D]

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

[G]

You could definitely do it.

[D]

And I have been with people because, again, we're talking about this Irish thing about death. I have been with people. Well, one person when they have died. And it's such a privilege to be with somebody when they're dying. And 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 this proximity to death where are around the body and taking care of that body themselves as much as they can in this day and age.

[C]

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 certain choirs at weddings that shouldn't take away from the power and the immediacy of what they're delivering.

[D]

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

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

So it's. 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, you're giving this. And to also put them in such close proximity to really important life stage as well, that's 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.

[G]

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 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, this is what's happening to the soul. This is what's happening now. This is. I'm explaining to you all who don't understand it. I have the power to explain this. This is what's going on.

[C]

It's also gonna rise to the dead in a completely different way.

[D]

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

[C]

Completely the same.

[D]

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.

[C]

Stop it.

[D]

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, even 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 Keenan 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.

[C]

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

[D]

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

[G]

Yeah, write in if you're. Yeah, let us know after here 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.

[D]

Yeah.

[G]

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.

[D]

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. 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 needs to be observed. And for instance, I was with my granny when she died a few years back.

[G]

I don't.

[D]

I can't remember now, five or six years ago, I suppose it is. And I was in the room and the other members of my family were in the room and we were sitting with her. And as soon as she died, and this is in the 21st century, as soon as she died, my mum 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.

[G]

And why the mirror covering is that to dissuade vanity in that moment? Because you want to be reflecting on something else. Is it something about the mirror as a portal, thinking about letting the spirit out?

[D]

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 souls or ghosts, whatever it might be. So it's not to trap them in there. So it's this quasi magic element that's going on. Quasi, you know. Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. 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. Oh, and one of the ones that I really like is if. Don't ask me how this would happen, but I guess it would in the 19th century, if a hen flies over the corpse, that hen has to be killed instantly.

[G]

That's so specific.

[D]

But it is like. I mean, what are you gonna do? Well, it's justice for the he. 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 head.

[G]

You don't want grandma walking around.

[C]

No, no, no, no.

[D]

The fox is going to 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.

[C]

You listen to Dan Snow's history hit there's.

[A]

Morning Zoe, got donuts.

[B]

Jeff Bridges. Why are you still living above our garage?

[A]

Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So.

[C]

Dana.

[B]

Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile. We'll get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.

[A]

Wow, impressive. Let me try. T mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.

[G]

Nice.

[B]

Jeffrey, you heard them.

[A]

T mobile is the best place to.

[D]

Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition.

[A]

So what are we having for launch?

[B]

Dude, my work here is done.

[E]

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[G]

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

[C]

I've been to a bastardized modern Irish.

[D]

Wake, which is very sad in Ireland.

[C]

In Dublin. Yeah.

[D]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

So I feel I'm not the right person around the table to talk about Irish way traditionally, but, you know, but I appreciated immediately the sense that everyone knew what to do. And I think we, England and the UK have, have lost are. 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, oh, I don't know, it's capitalism. As the markets shattered, our ability to remember because presumably we used to do things as a community. You know, we're in the worst of both worlds. Sort of inherited a strange Edwardian formality.

[G]

Yeah, we're like, we mustn't show any emotion, but we don't know why we don't know what?

[C]

Because presumably that served its own purpose and perhaps that did give strength and.

[D]

Yeah, ye.

[C]

But instead we've now lost. Yeah, we're between.

[D]

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.

[G]

You know, it's strange. It's a really strange time. And it's a kind of limbo time as well.

[D]

Right.

[G]

Sort of. Because you go back to work, then.

[D]

You have to take time off again and life is moving, but it's not.

[C]

Okay. So the wait, the two nights thing. So presumably the burial's part of the. So you go, what? It's two nights and then the burial happens.

[D]

So 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 that time apart from your drinking. 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 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.

[G]

Gave me flushbite. Like church peace, be worthy. Peace.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. Very bad.

[G]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

What did they die of? Oh, lung cancer. Yeah.

[D]

It's what they would have wanted. And so 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.

[C]

Oh my pochin.

[D]

And it just so happens. Well, 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.

[G]

Know Anthony's had four shots of this.

[D]

Yeah. Smell it before we go.

[C]

Wowee.

[D]

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

[G]

What's the measure of this?

[D]

I'm going to do a shot measure. Right.

[G]

I mean I would say that's pretty generous.

[D]

Oh, is it?

[G]

Yeah.

[D]

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

[C]

I have a little. Okay.

[D]

Slauncher.

[C]

Slauncher.

[G]

Oh, straight down.

[D]

Oh, my God. It was a lot.

[G]

That. That's.

[D]

It was a lot.

[C]

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

[D]

It was a lot.

[C]

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

[D]

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?

[G]

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

[D]

Pain stripper is what that is.

[G]

Anyway, so that's taken over the body.

[D]

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

[G]

Ever made your own alcohol?

[D]

Oh, my God, no.

[C]

Is it potato based?

[D]

It can be so barley originally, but then potato, anything starchy. Sometimes there was elements of fruit going in there. The history of pocine in itself is so interesting because of all people, Charles II outlaws it in Ireland. And yeah, you would imagine he'd be like, bring on the poutine, get it over here. 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 can't.

[G]

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

[C]

And yet 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 sort of approach this as we do Stonehenge or something. These traditions are alive. They're evolving throughout Irish history.

[D]

I think that's really interesting to say that they're alive and they're evolving. 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 dot com and their picture is up there. As we were, 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 on there.

[G]

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

[C]

Now, can you get the user generated content?

[G]

Yeah.

[D]

So it's where the funeral's gonna 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. So the people in the community or people who make it to the funeral, they all leave comments.

[G]

It's modern key and people can put in the comments. Well, this one time Anthony really wronged me.

[D]

Yeah, it is, it has. Oh yeah, good, well done. It has happen. There are moderators and things had to be removed and people have had to be removed. If it's getting too much.

[G]

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

[D]

Generally rip.I but generally speaking, yeah, but younger people are kind of not doing that so much. But this 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.

[G]

Yes, absolutely. Okay, so you've done the wake.

[D]

I have.

[G]

You're quite drunk 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 corpses, corpse or coffin stones along the road. Because it's such a vast place, 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. 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.

[D]

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?

[G]

No.

[C]

No.

[D]

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.

[G]

Were you invited to or.

[D]

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

[G]

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

[D]

No, really, it is. It's very anxiety inducing. 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 the whole way. We carried that granny the whole way the other one was driven.

[G]

She a bit heavier.

[D]

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.

[G]

I don't like that.

[D]

And that grass then needs to be cleansed, and it needs to be.

[G]

Why? What will happen?

[D]

I'm not sure what the implication is that.

[G]

That it'll become like a grave in itself.

[D]

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 is one way to do it. There are other ways as well. So it's. 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 man or the Famished man or whatever. And. 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 now we'll say, you know. Oh, yeah. I mean, I've never seen a coffin put down, though.

[C]

Really Never seen it.

[G]

Yeah, okay.

[D]

I've never seen that happen.

[C]

I suppose I haven't either.

[D]

I mean, it's not sort of odd.

[C]

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.

[G]

It's not far to go.

[C]

You listen to Dan Snow's history hit the best is yet to come. Stick with us.

[D]

This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out [e-mail]. that's O D O O dot com.

[A]

Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.

[B]

Jeff Bridges, Why are you still living above our garage?

[A]

Well, I dig the mattress, and I want to be in a T Mobile commercial like you. Teach me. So, Dana.

[B]

Oh, no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mob. We'll get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.

[A]

Wow, impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.

[G]

Nice.

[B]

Jeffrey, you heard them.

[A]

T Mobile is the best place to.

[E]

Get the new iPhone 17 Pro.

[D]

17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition.

[A]

So what are we having for launch?

[B]

Dude, my work here is done.

[E]

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[D]

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

[C]

Carried. Carried, carried.

[D]

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

[G]

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.

[D]

And in Ireland, women often don't carry the coffin, but more doing it now. But because of that, they put all different things. Oh, 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 ourselves. So like, I lowered my granny into the ground again.

[G]

The anxiety that is giving me, oh.

[D]

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 and it does feel like a lot of responsibility, but everyone's just doing it. And you have the undertaker beside you go, going, stand back up, Stas. Right, 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 well. You are not allowed, say, for instance, you were on your way to the church. And 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 parting, I don't know. I don't know where that group of people are going.

[G]

Because someone's seen the comments on the rip. Rip. Facebook.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know we're here and we're talking about it in quite a light way and there is an element of, I suppose now, fun to us, but actually think about what this is doing to community cohes, 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 are 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 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. And that in my lifetime, so. So the sanitization of death, though, is coming into Ireland. But we still do the wake. My granny had a marquee during her wake. That's how many people were there, because she has a family of 11. There were 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 less dancing. But not no dancing. There was some dancing.

[G]

Did you dance?

[D]

I didn't dance.

[G]

No, of course not.

[D]

Other people did.

[C]

Yeah.

[G]

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

[C]

And I certainly celebrate that.

[D]

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're held up and you're bound together by this thing that the community comes together for. So in many ways, it's again, the younger generation probably kind of go, oh, God, we have to go to a wake. This is cringe. But actually what it's doing in terms of community formation, it's important. There's a lot to be said for.

[C]

It, I think definitely, when they're the dead ones.

[D]

Yeah.

[G]

They'll expect it. Yeah. Yeah.

[D]

Well, this is the thing. Our grandparents generation, the wakes are huge. Again, my grandma had stadium lighting during her wake. We needed to have stadium lighting and overflow car parks. But for my parents generation, I think you will see that to come down a little bit because I just don't think we're gonna do that the same way. So it's probably going to filter down a little bit. And also there's fewer families, fewer Kids. Exactly.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

With 11 people. So it's a strange, strange thing. But I kind of love it.

[C]

It's wondrous.

[D]

And it's very dramatic. And I love that about Ireland. Ireland's very dramatic. We do a good line in drama. So. Yeah, I like it.

[G]

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.

[D]

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

[G]

We would expect nothing less.

[D]

Oh, God, I've been drinking. Now this is what's going to happen. Okay, I'm about to tell you a little story. A little scale. And it is. 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 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'. Clock. He often heard his father and mother say that it was not right to come from awake by yourself. But as he was a courageous man, he said he would go alone. 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 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 and did not leave it alive. Dan and Maddy. What was that? Hammering.

[G]

Time to play.

[D]

Yeah.

[G]

Yeah. Dan, Any guesses?

[C]

I think it was. He drank a lot and he was staggering up a hill and you know, you can hear your heartbeat in your ears. And he had a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

[D]

Oh, wow. Dan's going science with this.

[C]

Yeah, I'm afraid sarcasm from boozing and climbing up a hill in the middle of the night?

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

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

[G]

Oh, 100% supernatural, obviously.

[D]

Obviously. Yeah. What is it?

[G]

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

[D]

I mean, I'm asking You.

[G]

Is it his own boots?

[D]

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.

[G]

Oh, no. Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

[D]

So 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 do it.

[G]

You are the king of an Irish goodbye.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. I like. Bye, guys. I'm not even going to 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 coffins themselves. So it's like almost as you near your own house. He's hearing what potentially is coming around the corner because this is an old story, this isn't modern. So. Yes. So that's what I. That's what I hear it as. The nails in his coffin.

[C]

I think you're probably right. Well, that's it, folks. Thanks so much for my guests, Dr. Anthony Delaney and Dr. Matty Pelling. Make sure you go and check out their podcast after dark, wherever you get your pods. And thank you very much for listening. Hope you have a suitably spooky Halloween if that's your thing. Mine will be spent doing the rounds looking for haribos with my kids. See you time next. Next time.

[A]

Morning, Zoe. Got donuts.

[B]

Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?

[A]

Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana.

[B]

Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at t mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.

[A]

Wow, impressive. Let me try. T mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.

[G]

Nice.

[B]

Jeffrey, you heard them.

[A]

T mobile is the best place to.

[D]

Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition.

[A]

So what are we having for launch?

[B]

Dude, my work here is done.

[E]

24 month bill credit is on experience beyond for well qualified customers. Plus tax and $35 device connection charge credit send and balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs $1,099.99 cents and new line minimum $100 plus a month plan with auto pay, plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Ooklove Speed Test Intelligence data 1H2025 visit t mobile.com if you're.

[B]

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