The funeral trade in Ireland has undergone many changes over recent decades.Concubhar Ó Liatháin spoke to father and son Martin and Bill Fitz-Gerald of Fitz-Geralds Funeral Home in Macroom about how their business has adapted to meet these changes
'We’re dealing with people at probably the worst time of their lives': Undertaking the most important of tasks
The funeral trade in Ireland has undergone many changes over recent decades. Concubhar Ó Liatháin spoke to father and son Martin and Bill Fitz-Gerald of Fitz-Gerald’s Funeral Home in Macroom about how their business has adapted to meet these changes
'We’re dealing with people at probably the worst time of their lives': Undertaking the most important of tasks
The funeral trade is changing in Ireland. So declared Bill Fitz-Gerald, who has been an undertaker for 36 years, a veteran you might say but a comparative fledgling alongside his father, Martin, who has been in the business for 60 years.
Fitz-Gerald’s Funeral Directors have been in business in Macroom since 1824 and in that time they’ve buried the dead of the Great Famine, the 1919 Flu Pandemic, the War of Independence, the Civil War and, of course, the covid pandemic, the latter leading to strict restrictions being brought in to curtail the spread of the illness.
According to Bill and Martin, during an interview in their office in Ireland’s first purpose built funeral home, which was opened in Macroom in 1968, the covid pandemic has accelerated changes which have been taking place in a gradual way in this country over many years.
But before we get to that, Bill and Martin talk about how they got involved in the business.
Bill was a teenager when he started accompanying the late Knockie Cronin to wake houses and hospitals.
“I was nearly the same height then as I am now, so you’d be lifting or doing anything. I’d be sent out with Knockie to go to Cork to collect the remains with him,” he recalled.
“It went on from there, I did my Leaving Cert and I did my training embalming, I remember being told that I grew into my suit,” he said.
Martin admits being a ‘bit older’ when he started.
“I was 16, I hadn’t the choices Billy had as my father died when I was 18 – it was straight ahead then.”
The difference between funerals then and now was huge, according to Martin.
“There were no funeral homes,” he said. “It was in the houses and each street and each part of a parish, there was a lady that laid out the remains.”
Despite carrying out the onerous task of laying out the remains of the deceased, the lady who did the laying out didn’t get paid for this, she would have taken offence at the notion. Households did often give her gifts, however.
“When you went into the church, there was a certain gentleman in each church who would say the Rosary, the priest didn’t come,” said Martin.
“When the priest started coming, in the 1970's, it was the greatest thing going as we had to start on time. Before that we could be an hour late starting.”
He credits the funeral homes as starting the most significant transformation of the funeral rituals in his lifetime and the Macroom business was at the forefront of the revolution, building the first funeral home on a green field site in 1968.
Obtaining planning permission for the development was a particular challenge as superstition and piseoga led to objections.
“They did everything humanly possible to stop it, they were afraid of it,” he said. “If they only realised that we were the safest people to being next to.”
Martin pointed out that there was a cemetery in the middle of Macroom, in the old Church of Ireland grounds on Castle Street, which people passed every day or night, oblivious to the centuries of loved ones interred within its walls.
“They pass up and down, sober or drunk and there was no fellow ever haunted there!"
“Electricity got rid of a lot of ghosts,” he remarked, pointing out that the installation of public lights had led to the dispelling of a great many spirits.
There were difficulties, for the same reason, getting planning permission for the crematorium that’s now in Ringaskiddy. It had initially been earmarked for Ovens – which, perhaps, was not the best choice in terms of the name at least.
However, the option of reducing remains to ashes is getting more and more popular with between 50-60% of funerals in Dublin going to crematoria. The percentage is less in the rest of the country, but is growing.
The cost of cremation compared to traditional burial is more or less the same.
“It’s a piseog that it’s cheaper – if you own the grave, it’s the same thing. If you don’t own the grave, then you have to purchase the grave, then the cremation is cheaper,” said Martin.
“If you do the calculations, however, three burials and three cremations would be the same price, even with the purchase of the grave,” said Bill. “Even with the opening, it adds up to the same.”
When people lose a loved one and come face to face with the funeral, they go to a firm like Fitz-Geralds. There may be a sense of fear or trepidation at what the final bill may amount to.
“We bring them through here, it’s all listed and out in the open, the breakdown of the costs. Before we start, we give them the price so they don’t get a shock at the end,” said Bill.
“What a lot of people come back and say is that they thought it was going to be more.”
All the information is contained in brochures and on their website, another new addition to the business of funerals.
Back in the 1950's and 60's, before Martin Fitz-Gerald took over on the death of his father, the business included a shop, saw mill, coffin manufacturing, undertaking and pub. It was situated next to what was then a railway station and was a hive of activity.
While the Fitz-Gerald family has other business interests, most notably the bookshop and other retail outlets, its primary focus is on the funeral business.
And as Macroom’s population grows, there are a number of housing developments springing up as the N22 bypass benefit increases, that business is also growing.
The onset of the pandemic in 2020 led to restrictions on the way funerals were conducted, in that year and until the restrictions gradually eroded out of existence. The traditional large community events that funerals became were transformed into small family gatherings, with very limited numbers.
Martin believes that one of the nicest aspects of that never to be forgotten period in Irish life was the spontaneous ritual that emerged of families standing at their gates or the end of their laneways as the funeral corteges passed by on their way to the church or cemetery.
“We were the people who wanted to say yes and we will look into organising that. But then having to explain to people you can’t have this,” said Bill. “You couldn’t have gatherings of more than six people.”
The firm did carry out a few funerals of those who died due to covid but they were busy throughout the pandemic with funerals of those in the area and environs whose death had no link to the illness.
Whatever the cause, the funerals that did take place did so in churches with just a handful of relatives or close family friends present.
“There was no differentiation,” said Bill.
“We tried to facilitate funerals in different ways, we had one funeral where we allowed people to come and pay their respect over three days,” he added.
There were concerns too about bringing the illness home to their own families. As with the rest of us, that period was a fraught time.
As covid receded with the advent of vaccines and the relaxation of restrictions, funeral homes are being used more and more as they allow families more flexibility with respect to accommodating the relatives and friends of the loved one, as well as carrying out a funeral according to their wishes and those of the departed.
The relationship between the funeral directors and the Church is different now to what it was when Martin started.
While it might be assumed that a firm in a town in rural Cork would deal mainly with Catholic clients, the Fitz-Geralds also dealt a great deal with the Church of Ireland community.
“We’re dealing with people at probably the worst time of their lives and where we try as much as possible not to say ‘no’ to them. But what they ask the clergy to do is impossible sometimes,” said Martin.
Bill added his explanation: “With the fall off in religion and families not going to the church, and no disrespect, they’re trying to treat the church like a hall, they want to have rock music blaring in the church, it has to be appropriate.”
That’s where the funeral home comes into its own, according to Bill.
“You can have the coffin open or closed in the funeral home, you can bring in more pictures, you can do whatever you wish within reason but, in the church, there are strict rules.”
An issue that is having a significant impact now on the way funerals are conducted is the shortage of priests. In the Diocese of Cork and Ross, there are no public removals the night before the Requiem Mass. In some churches, a lay person will welcome the remains of the deceased into the church the night before.
The shortage of priests means the clergy that are left are having to carry out a multitude of services in the same days. It would be very difficult for anybody to be able to deal with switching between funerals, christenings and weddings, all on the same day.
Modern life, irrespective of the Church, has also speeded up the pace of change with more people wanting the funeral done according to their wishes, rather than according to a religious ritual.
“There have been developments, we’ve a screen now where you have photographs and slideshows. If you told me 20 years ago that we’d be doing slideshows, with modern music playing in the background, I’d have looked at you,” said Bill.
“The first thing we say to people is to do what suits you,” he said.
“If you want it traditional, three days, Rosary, removal, Requiem Mass, then do it that way. If you want to take a break and not do anything for a day, do that,” he said.
A factor to be considered, for instance, is that some family members may be working abroad and this means, when they get the news of a loved one passing away, they will have to get flights home and that will take time.
This is where embalming or hygienic treatment of the remains proves its worth.
“We were involved with a funeral where one of the family was in Canada and it would take him 36 hours to even get to an airport that would get him out of Canada,” he recalled.
In the display room next to the office there are coffins, including wicker coffins, caskets and urns, all of which come from Humphrey Lynch’s coffin factory in nearby Baile Mhic Íre. The factory is renowned for the quality of its coffins.
Recently, when the legendary GAA commentator Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh passed away, one of his quotes, about Cork footballer and Humphrey’s son, Anthony, came back into public discourse.
‘Anthony Lynch’s people are the last to let you down, they’re undertakers.’ (The firm used to be undertakers but are now exclusively making coffins. The Kerry legend was buried in a coffin from the Baile Mhic Íre firm).
After two hundred years, the Fitz-Gerald’s business is in good fettle. Martin is after passing the torch to Bill and whether one of his sons or daughter will follow him into the business.. “It’s there for them if they want it,” he said
