Are there any books with Current Irish Funeral Customs?
Most of funerals in Ireland are Catholic funerals, so if you could find something about Catholic funerals, that’s basically it. Protestant funerals aren’t much different, and I’ve never been to a non-religious funeral so I’m not sure what would happen there. Funerals usually take place 2 or 3 days after the person’s death, which I understand is not the case in some other countries. Some families have a wake, in which the body might be displayed in the person’s home and neighbours, relatives and friends come to pay their respects. At a recent death in the family, the undertakers made us cover the mirrors in the room where the body was, because they said that some older people consider it bad luck not to. I’d never heard that before, and I don’t know if it’s a specifically Irish thing.
