Irish and English funerals are very different – it would be strange to go to a colleague's family funeral in England
A few weeks ago, I was waiting at home for a long-expected, much-wanted plumber. (It's become a joke that when we see a plumber's van on the road in Dublin, someone says 'follow that car'.) The plumber phoned about an hour before he was meant to arrive, and I feared the worst. But he was only saying he'd be late, maybe an hour or so, because he had to go to a funeral.
Are you sure you can still come? I said, mustering all the nobility I could find in me. Surely you'll need some time off? I won't be eating there, he said, I'm not going for the sandwiches, I just wanted you to know I might be late. If you're really sure, I said, thank you.
I phoned an Irish friend for advice. Was it really okay for someone to go straight from a funeral to a job? Why was he telling me about the food, was it that he'd be skipping lunch as well as repressing distress to fix my taps, and should I offer a bowl of soup?
My friend explained, as she's explained much in the last five years: not going to the meal meant that he wasn't a close friend or family of the deceased, and that he was attending the funeral as a member of the community, to show respect and support for the bereaved, which was perfectly compatible with returning to work in the afternoon. She did not add, because we'd had the conversation before, that she finds the English approach to funerals and bereavement as unfathomable as I first found the Irish ways.
READ MORE
In
England
, you can pretty much assume that anyone coming from a funeral will be upset, because they wouldn't have gone otherwise. (Feelings and circumstances vary, of course; being family doesn't necessarily mean terrible distress at someone's passing, but it's likely to involve emotion strong enough to impair professional judgment immediately afterwards.) I wouldn't go to a friend's parent's funeral unless I knew the parent well, and I've never met most of my friends' parents because we all left our hometowns 30 years ago. It would be strange and even intrusive to go to a colleague's family funeral.
[
Is it hypocritical of me to go to a funeral but not a Communion?
Opens in new window
]
At nearly 50, I have attended four funerals ever, which is probably fewer than average because I come of a small and scattered family, but not remarkable. I missed one family funeral for a job interview, and it didn't occur to anyone that I should make any other choice; the funeral had already been postponed to allow for someone's exams. Unless we're Muslim or Jewish, in which case burial has to happen within a short time, English families tend to arrange funerals around existing commitments. It's not as if the dead are in a rush.
There's a case for the pragmatic approach, and it's the one society expects. The dead indeed can and will wait, but grief doesn't, and so the strange timeless days between death and ceremony stretch to weeks, as if exams and interviews mattered more than sorrow, as if keeping the machinery running should always be the first priority.
[
Sarah Moss: A reader tried to needle me by scoffing at knitting - I was intrigued
Opens in new window
]
In England, we're generally not fluent in speaking of loss and dying; I learned here to say 'I'm sorry for your loss', because I'd grown up thinking one shouldn't mention bereavement. The English approach – I'd hazard it's similar in Scotland and Wales, but I don't know – is rooted, I think, not so much in the dislike or suspicion of emotion as in the sense that feelings are private in relation to their intensity. That tendency seems cold to me now, but I think comes at best from the idea that it's kinder not to upset someone, that a person newly returned to work or venturing out after a bereavement might be only just holding on to dignity and should not be required to respond to condolences. Least said, soonest mended.
It's usually wrong, of course. These conventions leave people alone in sorrow, and reinforce the idea that sadness is dangerous and denial is the best approach. At worst, it's merely convenient for employers and acquaintances not to have to bother themselves with the disturbing facts of life and death, to pretend we're all cogs in the machine.
In this as in some other matters, I have come to prefer the Irish ways.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
8 hours ago
- Irish Times
Is there any tax disadvantage to gifting my children money now rather than as inheritance?
Can you give up to €400,000 to each of your children as a gift while you are alive but they use their €400k inheritance tax free allowance so that they pay no tax now. They have not received any inheritance to day (only the €6k per annum from my husband and myself). I do understand that when we die all of their inheritance will be subject to 33% tax but feel they could do with the €400k now for house deposits. Ms J.G. READ MORE Well this is refreshing. Not that you have €400,000 to gift each of your children though that is certainly their good fortune but that you are alert to considering when such a tax free gift might best be of use to them. The tax rules are very clear. Your children are entitled to receive a certain amount by way of gift or inheritance without liability to tax. Everyone is but the amount that can be gifted or inherited tax free is far higher for children receiving from their parents than any other group. The actual threshold can change from time to time but, right now, it is €400,000. This is called the Category A tax free threshold. Category B, which governs gifts and inheritances received from a blood relative – a sibling, grandparent or aunt/uncle – is just €40,000. Category C, which covers all other relationships, is half of that again, €20,000. The thing to remember is all of these are 'lifetime' limits, covering everything a person has received since December 5th, 1991. So, if someone gets an inheritance from one parent of, say, €50,000, they have just €350,000 left for any future parent inheritances and gifts. If the tax-free thresholds change, that might change, as your allowance is always measured against the tax-free threshold in place at the time the beneficiary receives their gift or inheritance. As you note in your query, when it comes to gifts, it is also important to remember that the first €3,000 of any gift from any person is not counted against their lifetime tax-free limit as it is covered separately under something called the small gift exemption. If both parents are party to the gift, the exemption is €6,000, as the beneficiary is entitled to receive €3,000 from any individual and clearly the parents count as two individuals. But the small gift exemption counts strictly against gifts given in a particular tax year. So, for instance, your child cannot receive a gift of €12,000 from you and your husband to help with a house deposit and then suggest to the tax authorities that it covers this year and next. That wouldn't work. In that case, €6,000 comes under the small gift exemption and the remaining €6,000 is marked against their lifetime limit. The small gift exemption is a really tax efficient structure for parents and even grandparents or other family looking to give a financial hand to children or younger relatives – at least for those fortunate enough to have the financial wriggle room to consider it. Of course, for the parent or other benefactor, this gift is coming from after-tax income. A gift of even €1,000 per parent per year over a couple of decades of a young person's life would give them a pot of €50,000 at the age of 25 even without any investment gain – a handy pot for a deposit on a first home. In your case, you are fortunate enough to be in the position to consider handing over €400,000 to each of your children while you are still alive. There is absolutely nothing to stop you doing so: the only reason more people don't consider substantial lifetime gifts is that they frankly would not have anything like the resources to be able to do so. For most people, the money they will leave their children is locked up in their own home. Whether it make sense to do so is another thing and one only you can judge. You mention house deposits but €400,000 would buy a home mortgage free outside Dublin according to Central Statistics Office figures showing the average price of property at €364,000. Even in Dublin, where the average is €450,000 in the first quarter of this year, it would leave a young couple almost mortgage free. While big mortgages can certainly be a burden, there is a valuable financial discipline for young adults in learning how to manage finances, including managing debt. Paying a mortgage also provides a credit history which can be useful down the line. It might be worth considering whether, while a financial helping hand now is useful in funding a first home, a windfall at a future date might also be welcome as your children face college costs for any children they have or, indeed, allow them to give those children a helping hand with their own home deposits. It is certainly worth weighing up the merits of giving, say, half that sum now so that a similar amount would remain available to them. Of course, even if you do proceed with this gift in full and with capital acquisitions tax (CAT) on future inheritance, your children will still benefit from two-thirds of whatever future inheritance comes their way from either of you given the current CAT tax rate of 33 per cent. For now, on the tax side, from your children's perspective, as they have received no inheritance from either of you to date and no gifts in excess of the €6,000 between the pair of you each year, they will have no tax to pay on the gift. There is certainly no tax disadvantage either to you or your children in choosing to gift now rather than them waiting for an inheritance. What they will have to do, however, is file a return with the Revenue. This is obligatory once a beneficiary passes the 80 per cent mark of each of the three thresholds. It is determined not by the size of the individual inheritance or gift but the cumulative impact of large gifts and inheritances down the years. The return is made via an IT38 form. This is available online from Revenue through either the myAccount or ROS platforms, whichever is relevant to each of your children. There is also a paper form alternative. Hopefully, such a gift will give them considerably more than a house deposit but certainly, used wisely, it could help them enormously in those early adult years when they are investing in their future, and possibly juggling childcare costs that remain a real financial burden on many families. As you say, unless the threshold rises from the current level, your €400,000 gift means each child will pay tax at 33 per cent on any future inheritance from either you or your husband. But the money – or at least some of it – is probably more use to them now than in will be in what could be many years time when you die. Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street Dublin 2, or by email to with a contact phone number. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice
Irish Times
12 hours ago
- Irish Times
We used to vilify unwed mothers. Now we criticise women who don't want to be mothers
According to the Central Statistics Office, the average age of Irish first-time mothers is now 31.7, while births to women aged over 40 have increased by 21.5 per cent in the last decade. Public discourse on the growing numbers of women electing not to have children is loud, insufferable and generally asking the wrong questions. The real story behind declining birth rates and elective non-parenthood in the West is unsurprisingly more complicated than we give it credit for. It is not just that women are too busy 'girlbossing' their way to Beyoncé gigs in fringed cowboy boots to think – quite literally – of the children. Some are choosing not to become parents. In a society that considers parenthood the default, this choice is usually made with care and clarity. After all, the social cost alone is a powerful disincentive. More would like to be parents but can't see how it might be possible under their present conditions. The situation is often reduced to personal selfishness or cultural decline – laziness, greed, convenience – resulting in women failing to do their duty. What's missing from the discourse is legitimate curiosity about why this decision appears to be becoming more common. We still treat readiness for parenthood as a sort of universal personal milestone, but that is no longer the world we actually live in. Desire isn't a primary factor in decision-making if you can't afford rent, if childcare costs more than the salary you require in order to live, and if there isn't a stable partner with whom to coparent or family or community support nearby. Many increasingly common material limitations are dismissed as a general unwillingness to inconvenience oneself in order to be a parent. But lacking the money, the housing or the support (let alone all three) to raise a child is more than sufficient disincentive. We are living in a time in which there is no guarantee that the future will look anything like the past. While it's in our collective interest for people to have more children, it isn't in the interest of many individuals or their prospective families. Chastising people for having the rationality to notice this and act accordingly is not an effective means of changing it. READ MORE [ Childcare in Ireland: 'Even as well-paid professionals, it was an exhausting struggle. The numbers never added up' Opens in new window ] In Ireland, we have a long history of disguising structural problems as moral ones. This is how we justified institutionalising more of our population than any other country in the world in the 20th century. It is arrogant of us to presume we've outgrown the sophistic habit we've long used to avoid looking too closely at ourselves. Until recently, we looked at mothers who had children outside the conditions we considered appropriate as moral failures – selfish abnegators of their collective duty. Now, we repurpose that same impulse and direct it at non-mothers. In both instances, we fall prey to the same error – a failure to look around at the conditions and society in which women live, and the incentive structures around them, and to consider how we are collectively contributing to the outcomes many claim to disapprove of. The reluctant mother is a shameful, piteous figure in our culture. She garners our disgust in a way we often spare fathers of the same inclination. It's the happy, fulfilled, enthusiastic mother our culture idolises. The 'natural' mother. We ignore the fact that only women who desire to be mothers are likely to feel fulfilled by the role, and even then, not all will feel that way – because women are people, and need more than a relational identity in order to value themselves. Young Irish women were taught to value autonomy by a generation of women who advocated and struggled to create a freedom they didn't enjoy themselves. The point was always choice. Now, women are choosing, and we're still blaming them. Not everyone is suited to parenthood, and it's better for all when those people choose to live childfree. There are valuable and meaningful ways to live a good, fulfilled life, make a contribution and invest in others beyond perpetuating one's own family line, obviously. It's a good thing that fewer people are raising children they don't want, and that fewer children experience this harm. Increasingly, there are people who don't feel hopeful about the future or cannot find stability – rejecting parenthood is both rational and compassionate under those circumstances. There are also those who would rather do other things with their time. It makes no sense for this fact to be personally offensive to people who have nothing to do with them – this is a coercive impulse that will not be remedied by a stranger having a baby. [ So, you want children. But can you afford them? Opens in new window ] However, declining birth rates are still a material problem. If the survival of humanity depends on women embracing motherhood (it does, but not to the exclusion of all other factors – we just like focusing on this one), then our discourse is incoherent. Why is there so little curiosity about why more women seem to find the prospect of motherhood unappealing, inaccessible or both? Why do we expect people – but specifically women – to choose parenthood despite all of the compelling reasons not to? This is a question we should be asking. [ Celtic Tiger baby boom has turned to bust as fertility rates decline Opens in new window ] Crucially, among all the patronising dismissals and the finger-wagging warnings of 'she'll-regret-it', a growing body of research suggests that women in both Ireland and the UK actively want more children than they have, or want to have a child, but don't consider themselves able to. This suggests the impediment is structural and very much not about diminishing desire or hoarding more money for Beyoncé tickets and Uber Eats. Evidence suggests most women would choose to be mothers – if there were more stable access to adequate housing, if childcare were more affordable, if we had more community cohesion and support. Less judgment and more curiosity would have benefited us when we were incarcerating unmarried pregnant women and girls for nonconformity, and it would benefit us now.
Irish Times
13 hours ago
- Irish Times
Persecution of Irish Catholics led to foundation of Irish Francisan landmark in Rome
This week marks the 400th anniversary of St Isidore's College in Rome as an Irish Franciscan landmark and Ireland's national church in the city. On June 13th 1625, Waterford man and Franciscan priest Fr Luke Wadding signed a contract taking over the building and, during the following week his Irish brother Franciscans moved in. They've been there since. At the time, Catholics faced severe persecution in Ireland leading to a multitude of Irish Colleges emerging across Europe, including St Isidore's, to provide formation for exiled Irish clergy. St Isidore's origins are shared by Ireland with Spain, as reflected in the sculptures of two saints on the building's Rococo facade: St Isidore of Madrid and St Patrick of Ireland. READ MORE It began in 1622 when a group of Spanish discalced Franciscans founded a convent dedicated to the newly canonised Isidore, a farmer and holy man from the 11th century. However, they soon ran into debt and had to abandon their incomplete home, near Piazza Barberini. Fr Wadding, living in Rome at the time, offered to take over St Isidore's on condition he could turn it into a seminary to train Irish Franciscan priests for service in Ireland. In addition to completing the church, he enlarged the building – originally designed to house 12 men – to accommodate 60 friars. Within five years he had paid off debts accumulated by the Spanish, through donations from benefactors which included Pope Urban VIII. Although it retained the name of the Spanish saint from Madrid, Fr Wadding was keen to underline the Irishness of the new college, as evidenced by the frescoes of Ireland's patron saints – Patrick and Bridget – on either side of the entrance to the church, beneath old Irish script from an 8th century text. Restorers from the Italian Ministry of Culture recently discovered that the fresco of St Patrick was initially beardless, in keeping with early iconography of the saint. Current guardian of St Isidore's, Fr Mícheál Mac Craith, said adding the beard was Fr Wadding's way of presenting Patrick to the Vatican 'as an Irish Moses, a patriarchal figure. So, the beard added that necessary gravitas.' A large fresco in the college's Aula Magna depicts scholars at St Isidore's studying in the library, with a long Latin inscription underneath asserting that the Irish nation, destroyed at home by Cromwell, was being recreated in Rome through the scholarship of Irish Franciscan exiles. A recent five-month restoration of the Patrick and Bridget frescoes was completed just in time for St Patrick's Day last March, when the city's Irish community crowded into St Isidore's beautiful church. At Mass that morning, Fr Mac Craith paid tribute to Fr Wadding for his role in founding St Isidore's but also for his crucial part in establishing Ireland's national day in 1631. He noted how 'up to then St Patrick was just a local Irish saint. But Wadding insisted and prevailed on the Vatican to mandate that the feast of St Patrick be celebrated all over the world and not just at home: from Derry to Dubrovnik, from Limerick to Lesotho, from Roscommon to Rwanda.' Fr Mac Craith also pointed out that 'with its verses in Old Irish, St Isidore's is the only church in Rome that uses its vernacular language in its portico. It would seem that when Wadding came here, he wanted to make a very strong statement: `this is an Irish establishment'.' Prof emeritus of Modern Irish at the University of Galway, Fr Mac Craith believes the prominent depictions of Patrick and Bridget also served to make the point that: 'Ireland is a separate kingdom; it has its own saints and its own language: the Irish have come to town.' Fr Wadding can also take credit for St Isidore's church being home to stunning examples of 17th-century Italian art, achieved by hiring the best Roman artists of the day with financial assistance from Spanish patrons. As part of a long-standing tradition, the St Patrick's Day Mass in Rome is presided over each year by the rector of Rome's Irish College, which Fr Wadding founded in 1628 for the training of diocesan priests. He accomplished all of this within a decade of arriving in Rome in 1618, at the age of 30, following studies in Lisbon. His arrival in the Eternal City came about after King Philip III of Spain chose him as theological adviser to a delegation sent to petition Pope Paul V to define the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, that Mary was born without original sin on her soul. The mission failed and the royal delegation returned to Spain, but Fr Wadding stayed on in Rome where he would spend the rest of his life. He also never lost sight of the reason for his original mission and his work would prove fundamental to the eventual definition of the Immaculate Conception as a dogma of the Catholic Church in 1854. Fr Wadding, who served as rector at St Isidore's for 30 years, was also Ireland's first ever accredited ambassador. In 1642, the Confederation of Kilkenny appointed him as their representative in Rome. He died on November 18th 1657, aged 69 and is buried in the crypt at St Isidore's. Andy Devane is editor of the monthly magazine Wanted in Rome. This is an edited version of an article he wrote and published in the magazine to mark the 400th anniversary of the Irish Franciscans at St Isidore's.
