For those who grew up in rural Ireland, death was an intrinsic part of community life. As soon as an obituary was read in solemn tones over local radio, the plates of cling-film covered sandwiches would quietly begin to arrive; when the hearse made its way slowly up main street, shops dimmed their lights and locals bowed their heads; queues snaked around pews as hands from far and wide waited for their moment; while later over cup after cup the laughter and chatter would celebrate the person just buried.
For many Irish emigrants living abroad, such immediate support to carry them through the wave of sadness is absent, as the world around them carries on as normal. But still the familiar Irish rituals of death, whether in person after a long journey or through a computer screen, can provide solace.
Four Irish people living abroad have shared their experiences and reflections on funerals and grieving.
‘I knew straight away it was bad news’: Finbarr McCarthy, Australia
Every Irish emigrant expects and dreads the phone call they know will come. It is the call to say a beloved family member has died. Mine came at 4.40am in the middle of the Australian school holidays. I knew straight away it was bad news.
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I emigrated to Australia in 1990. I expected the call would be about my wonderful mum in her mid-80s – it wasn’t. My 60 year old brother, living his best life, had taken his beloved dog Archie dog for a walk and that was it.
This is not a eulogy – my younger brother delivered a magnificently heartfelt tribute at the standing room only funeral. This is my bumbling attempt to explain the unique sense of loss that emigrants feel when separated by thousands of miles, time zones, weather patterns and the cumulative effects of no face- to -face contact for years. It hurts.
The loss of a loved one always hurts but the impact and emotional weight of distance, time and the inevitable sense of emigrants’ guilt creates an experience that is deep and dark. Living in Australia hurts right now. Yet when I returned to mourn him, I felt embraced by Ireland and its uniquely moving and meaningful rituals.
Ireland was in an economic depression in 1990 when I upped and left on a working holiday visa to Australia. Eoin and I had been sharing an inherited house in Donnybrook and what a laugh - mostly.
Whoever was first home had to record the nightly Neighbours episode – 6pm after the Angelus. We marvelled at the size of Australian refrigerators and the notion of after school surfing. Living with Eoin was fun – we rarely did housework, we played tennis often and took our scrabble wins (and losses) seriously.
I was best man at his wedding the Autumn before I left for Australia. At that stage there were no other wives or grandchildren. But life moves forward and now there are wives, husbands and heaps of relatives scattered around the world. Tecnology (or lack of it) back in 1990 meant our contact was by phone. Eoin he did come to visit me in Australia (he didn’t particularly like it here and vowed never to return).
During this first decade we both focused on careers and families. Contact was intermittent but always warm. But I often thought of us growing up in Loughrea, Co Galway by the lake. We spent many carefree days as teenagers were on the water, swimming, fishing, sailing. Our late Dad once agreed to mind a donkey which took an instant dislike to Eoin. We laughed ourselves sick as it lost the plot and tried to break the gate and bite him.
There were many milestone moments. And mostly Eoin was always there. Connected to me. And later connecting me to Ireland. For years we had been texting and talking almost every day.
The thing is, when I returned for his funeral, the time and distance of emigration seemed to shrink to tolerable levels.
I felt reconnected by comforting words of ritual, the handshakes and the re-emergence of familiar, if greyed, faces from our childhood
— Finbarr McCarthy
Apart from the freezing cold, I felt reconnected by comforting words of ritual, the handshakes and the re-emergence of familiar (if greyed) faces from our childhood and the sincerity of their condolences.
Ireland has a complicated history of emigration, but when you need it the most, it embraces you and reminds you of deep bonds.
Eoin will always be my closest brother. We will always share an extraordinary Irish childhood that informs my life joyously and reinforces the notion that Irishness is a permanent condition unaffected by time or distance.
Finbarr McCarthy grew up in Co Galway and lives in New South Wales where he works as a high school teacher.
[ Five things no one tells you about grief: A bereaved daughter writesOpens in new window ]
‘The trip back was lonely’: Brendan Cronin, US/Switzerland
The phone call came as did all the previous ones –unannounced yet expected. The number was a familiar one, one I had called weekly for decades.
But this time there was no mother’s cheery voice at the other end – just the gentle breathing of a dying woman as my sister-in-law held the phone to my mother’s ear for me to wish her a final farewell. I told her I loved her. Her shallow breathing a reminder the end was near. Then she left with the turning of the tide.
The trip back to Mayo was a lonely one, retracing steps taken over so many years, but now knowing there would be no mother’s smile, welcoming hug, or tight squeeze of a hand at the end. The sight of the open coffin and her beautiful face brings the tears and those damn memories. How can they be so uplifting and then so saddening in the blink of an eye?
The phone call came as did all the previous ones – unannounced yet expected
— Brendan Cronin
With the brothers we sat by her head, and they came by the hundreds from far and near; all to honor a great woman. Some recognised me and others inquired inquisitively: “You’re the fella in America?” I shook all the hands offered, some calloused, some smooth, some jewelled, some none, my mother never differentiated or judged – always welcoming everyone to her house.
The wake lasted two days and a night, and yet the flow of people continued, some making the sign of the cross, then a silent prayer. All the while the memories kept welling up: me as a young boy cooking together with her, seeing her darning my socks for school, and then years later, calling me in Boston after a snow storm to see if I was wearing enough warm clothes, her bright smile always present – even on the phone. So it was fitting we celebrate her rich life and not mourn her peaceful death.
When the time came to close the coffin, we each said our goodbye. The touch of her cold forehead jarring my lips, hard to watch the brothers grieving in their own way, as in turn we each inserted one of the four screws to seal the lid. On that bright sunny Irish mother’s day in March, we carried her coffin to the graveside, one brother at each corner – the fifth one dead and gone before her.
We lowered her coffin in a sandy grave overlooking the bay, and each with a shovel, filled it in, at peace with ourselves knowing that she had finally arrived at her destination after a life well-lived and well-loved – a true privilege after nine decades and one.
The trip back to Boston was one of reflection and blessing. Blessing because my mother died of old age, fell asleep in her own bed in her own house – no terminal illness, feeding tubes, or memory loss – her sharp wit still present. An ending reserved for few.
In Dublin, on the way to the airport, the taxi driver, looking at my suitcase, inquired: “Emigratin’ are ye”? “Ah, no,” I replied, “Just going home.”
Brendan Cronin is from Co Mayo and left Ireland in 1974. He worked as a professional chef for luxury hotels around the world. He was a hospitality management professor for 26 years in Boston. He is currently a visiting professor at Les Roches Global Hospitality Education in Switzerland.
‘Our approach to funerals is special’: Roisin Nicholson, Thailand
“It wasn’t until I moved away that I realised how special our approach to funerals and grief is. There is a sacred ritual, a knowing and a consistency,” says Roisin Nicholson. The Belfast woman is a psychotherapist who lives in Thailand where she specialises in grief and baby loss.
“Rituals give us a sense of control in a situation that is out of our control. It gives us something tangible to hold on to during a difficult time,” she says.
There are many aspects of how “the Irish do death” which can help grieving people, Nicholson says. “We do not shy away, we face it headfirst, connect with their body and recognise their soul has gone ahead what ever that means to each.”
The “community aspect” is “special ... This reflects to us that we are not alone in our grief”. Telling stories and cherishing the life of the deceased “is such a beautiful way to send off those who have died”.
For Nicholson, living away from Ireland for 14 years has helped her to recognise the “sacredness of the wake”. Her first wake at aged 10 was her paternal grandfather’s unexpected death. “It allowed me to spend time with my Granda in his death, to hear people tell stories I would not have known, to witness the coming together of my family and his community, to touch his face one last time.” The rituals helped her at a young age to understood the finality of death. “I knew that the lovely man I sat with and spoke with every single week would no longer be part of my physical world.”
For an Irish emigrant who has grown up in this tradition, it can be very difficult to be away from home, she says. Being unable to get home for a funeral can be a “secondary loss”, she says. “It can feel unreal or that it’s hard to believe because you haven’t been able to mourn in your usual way or say your final goodbyes,” she says.
Attending funerals online can help while carrying out their own rituals can also offer comforts for emigrants – it may be looking at photos, writing a letter, lighting a candle or “doing something they enjoyed to feel a sense of closeness”, she says.
‘A New York 7am funeral for me’: Siobhán Meehan Smyth, US
US-based Siobhán Meehan Smyth feared she would end up watching her mother’s funeral online. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer during Covid. But just before the pandemic, in 2019, Meehan Smyth and her two children moved to Long Island, New York for her husband’s tech firm job. She was unable to get home to Charlestown, Co Mayo easily due to restrictions.
To her relief, she managed to come home for several visits before her mother’s death in 2022, when she spoke at her funeral.
Funeral live streams are “one of the few gifts” Covid provided, she says. Meehan Smyth says that these days, if there is a funeral which she would have gone to were she living in Ireland, she will watch online . When her own mother died, knowing cousins were watching around the world gave her a “sense of unity”.
Watching funerals on camera is my way of showing up
— Siobhán Meehan Smyth
“Watching funerals on camera is my way of showing up, my way of still being able to be the west of Ireland mourner inside me,” she says.
She says while the 7am funeral makes her sad not to be able to be there, it also makes her grateful and reminds her of emigrant relatives who did not have this privilege.
After her mother’s death, Meehan Smyth began writing more poems. Her mother also enjoyed writing and she feels she is there with her when she writes. She has shared her poem, 7am funerals, about watching funerals online from abroad.
7am Funerals
A person you care about has passed away at home,
An ocean prevents you from being there, so you watch on your laptop or phone,
You set your morning alarm once you find the time on RIP,
It’s often Midday at home, so a New York 7am funeral for me,
Still in your PJs, you light the candle you lit many times before,
Your kids are still asleep, you quietly close their bedroom doors,
You turn on your digital window to the church in your hometown,
And hold a breath … till the camera connects, and only then will you sit down,
Soon you see backs of heads you recognise ...family, neighbours, and friends,
Your clock strikes seven, their bell strikes 12 …..the music starts, hushed talking ends
Slow steps of sadness are taken, in time with the chords of the entrance hymn
Be Not Afraid, or Here I am Lord……… a carefully chosen person from the balcony sings,
You thank technology for this opportunity from thousands of miles away,
To be a digital mourner and get to remember, reflect, and pray,
One of your two kids arises to get ready for the day at their American school,
Halfway through the Our Father you’d been saying, to a previously empty living room,
Each time, and there’s been quite a few, you have logged on for this early morning mass
You pause to think of your immigrant parents, aunts, and uncles, who didn’t have this when a loved one passed,
You now don’t think about how unfair it is that miles prevent you from attending in real life,
And feel grateful that you get to hear the words describing a much-loved father, friend, or wife,
For me, my 7am funeral mornings are part of being a present-day expat,
A candle burns, the town here wakes, I drink coffee while I pray, and I always smile at that.
- Are you Irish and living in another country? Would you like to share your experience in writing or by interview? You can use the form below, or email abroad@irishtimes.com. Irish Times Abroad submission guidelines here.
