Funeral traditions

[snowflakesnow]

I'm from Northern Ireland. The tradition in my community and across others in NI is normally once someone has died within a day or two they are brought to their own home in a coffin having been dressed in their own clothes by the undertakers. We hold a wake for the person (open casket) at all times for about 2/3 days until funeral, and people visit the home to pay their last respects so to speak. On the day of the funeral a priest comes and the coffin is closed and the funeral proceeds, the coffin is always carried by the men in the family for a mile or so and the same again on the final journey to their resting place (grave), close family attend to grave to watch coffin being lowered and throw first bits of soil in.

I suppose it's normal to see that now and the person who has died in their open coffin. They just looks like they are sleeping and in a way can help you come to terms with it. You won't lose the good memories you had with them.

I'm just wondering what the traditions are where you come from?

Went to a funeral recently in South Wales, a small, very old place in the Valleys. Elderly relative. Open coffin in the front room. Minister arrived, conducted service in front door, addressing the deceased in the room, and us, stood in the road. We said the Lord's Prayer, very powerfully. But no hymns, no music. The undertakers staff who carried the coffin to the hearse were women. That's it really, she'd been born in the house next door, and lived where she did all her life. It was really moving.

We have a funeral the day after the death and sometimes even on the same day and then we have a week of memorial prayers each night in the home of deceased families relatives. The funeral is very simple, there are no flowers or personalisation of the service and almost all funerals are burials. I couldn’t begin to imaging waiting weeks for a funeral. For various reasons we had to wait 4 days for MIL’s funeral and it was awful.