[Dedalus]

I held my grandfather's hand as he was died from cancer in our home on Saturday night. He was more of a father and a support than my father and we were very close.

The funeral was iat my family's home in the country of the west of Ireland even though my grandfather was from London but having emigrated in the 1930's. This was the first Irish funeral for me to experience and it was completely different to anything that ever happened in England.

On Sunday morning the undertakers came to take the corpse away and embalm it. At about 4 oclock that afternoon they brought the corpse back in an open coffin to the house where we kept it in the home overnight. Neighbours and friends from the community came round to express their sympathies and they had sandwiches and beer and whiskey with us. The neighbours of our townland arranged it amongst themselves to go and dig the grave.

On monday morning the corpse was taken by the undertakers to the funeral parlour where at five o'clock family members sat around the corpse and more friends and family gathered (maybe 250 came in the two hours it was there) where they queued to shake hands with us and tell us they're sorry for our loss - many of them not even having met my grandfather.

From there the coffin was closed and put in the hearse and driven with everyone driving behind slowly to the church where a short service was held and it was kept there overnight. People came back to the house for more sandwiches, beer and whiskey.

Today was the funeral. Everyone gathered for the service at the church which was an hour long. In the space of an hour the coffin was brought to the graveyard and buried. I carried the coffin into the graveyard and grave along with my father, two uncles, two cousins and my grandfather's son in-law. After that everyone came back to the house for more of the same.

I had never felt that I really fitted in with the country people, but this was incredible. I suddenly saw why a funeral was so important in Irish culture and why it is so represented in the literature, music and art of Ireland. I suddenly felt very proud of my Irish blood...and I found that in my suit I felt a lot older, almost like my grandfather, because I had taken, like many of the other men in the country, to drinking straight whiskey from a glass rather than pints or bottles of beer. The whole sense of community and having the corpse there with you was incredible.

It was far more satisfying that any other type of funeral.