Is lying in state a closed coffin?

[GreenGreenGrassBlue]

I’m from a country where all our funerals are open coffin so we follow that culture here too and bring the body home for family and friends to visit. I’m assuming it’s a closed coffin due to the number of days for the Queen?

My family is northern Irish, when my Granny died she was waked at home for 2 days before the funeral, I sat with her having a cup of tea like we always did together.
An open casket is very normal, the only closed casket funerals I’ve been to are here in England.

When my stepdad died my mum had a closed casket and he stayed in the funeral home because that’s what his English family wanted and she was too upset to argue, also funerals take much longer here.
My granny died on a Friday afternoon and her funeral was Monday lunchtime. When my stepdad died it was 15 days, so he wouldn’t have been in a fit state by then anyway.

Ex president Gorbachev was lying in state in an open casket very recently.

Some caskets have a 1/4 or 1/3 open at the top for the face to be seen, the rest has the casket closed. It's a split casket.

Northern ireland has open coffin either at home or funeral directors although I have been to some funerals where it is closed coffin. I always thought England was closed coffin because it can take up to 3 weeks for burial where n.i is a few days x

A Vault is an underground room sometimes with openings in the wall where coffins are placed either side in or lengthways, a bit like Italian and French but without the bells and lights.

I don't like the idea of having my nose stuffed with cotton wool or my eyes and lips glued up, which is what happens here.

I'm British live in northern ireland and we have open coffins

I think this may sound odd to those living in England because it doesn't happen there but it's normal for us and using the word 'gawping' is very insulting as she is my queen also

I'm claustrophobic so I deffo don't want to be in any kind of situation where, if I started breathing, I wouldn't be able to shout and get out. Being in a coffin would be a nightmare.

Was he embalmed? That may be why. They do it at the funeral directors if he went there.

It's nothing ghoulish, just prevents decay and preserves the body using chemicals.

If he wasn't embalmed, was he kept at a morgue at a funeral directors? Low temperature preserves the body and reduces decay.

Sorry that all sounds so medical and matter of fact when talking about your loved one. I don't mean it to, my tone is less matter of fact in my mind 😳

The only deceased person I've ever seen was in 1962 in a funeral 'parlour' when a young colleague (17) died due to an inoperable brain tumour. The casket was completely open and I remember noting that her nail beds were blue. In our family, women/ females didn't go to funerals, so mum didn't go to dad's funeral and I didn't go to the funerals of either parent or any relatives. I've no idea why that was.

Apparently, the Grenadier Guardsmen (rookies, as the serving battalions of the Grenadiers are abroad on peacekeeping duties) who will be carrying the Queen's coffin have all to be over 6ft and they are being fitted with specially made rubber boots so there is no chance of them slipping.

In my family we embalm and have the deceased home the night before the funeral with the coffin lid off.

Are you of Welsh heritage? It used to be the norm for women not to attend the burial/interment, only the church service.

I’m not sure if it was a morgue.

it’s been two years, if he was embalmed would
he be in the same condition now still! He was cremated so won’t actually look like anything now

I don't have a problem with open coffins for private family funerals and people attending who know the deceased or the family and I respect this is the tradition for many. It's not what we do in our family, my mum didn't want anyone to see her dead so she was embalmed and her coffin was closed. Being very blunt here but the funeral director told me we should embalm her as the body would start to smell. We had to wait about a week or so as family were flying home and my mum was being taken from England to Scotland and there's a lot of admin for this process.

Personally I wouldn't be happy going to see the dead body of a person I didn't know, i'm not squeamish, it's just not my bag. I'm not a royalist but I can't imaging the Queen would want thousands of strangers looking at her in her coffin and I think for her, it's appropriate that her coffin is closed. There would be people there to gently pay their respects but there would be others for whom it's a day out and photo opportunity. Not all of them gawkers, but many of them would be and I think that is distasteful.

I also wonder if she'll be buried in Balmoral where she died. I don't believe that the coffin that thousands will flock to see will actually contain her body.

Like I say, I'm not a royalist but I think behind all the pomp and ceremony which was after all, her job, she was a private woman. I hope she gets the funeral she wants.

No, it doesn't prevent decay, just slows it down a bit. If he was buried nature would take its course so to speak. X

Would the Queen have been embalmed right there at Balmoral? Where - in the bedroom? How would the undertaker get there quickly? And equipment? Where would her coffin have come from?

It's very bewildering.

I was wondering the same OP!

I’m French and we’ve always done a 3-4 day wake with the body on a cold table in the funeral home. I couldn’t imagine anything else and I’m so grateful that each time a family member died I had time to fly from Australia and still get there to see the body and say goodbye. Couldn’t imagine not being able to say goodbye- and like you said it’s a mental thing for most people. Just to realise that their loved one is gone but looks peacefully at rest.
Coffins then got sealed before funeral service at the church.

Normal for me and my family. We are British and in North West England (Liverpool). Catholic roots (if this matters, apparently so for this thread) and family always come home in open casket to be with loved ones before funeral. Sounds weird but actually quite nice and calming.

Do you know how you're coming across?

@GreenGreenGrassBlue theres nothing wrong with your question. You’ve asked because it’s the norm for your culture. I’d ignore @MrsDanversGlidesAgain who seems ignorant of the fact that death varies vastly across the world and seems incapable of discussion and merely resorts to swearing or plain rudeness. I have felt shocked at the way some cultures ‘celebrate’ death until I understood why those customs and traditions were so important. There’s nothing disrespectful about asking.

How rude are some people?!

It might not be the most common here but open casket viewings and wakes are hardly rare as rocking horse shit in the UK, and very common in lots of other places, many of them not THAT far away from here either!

No one 'gawps', you look, say something if you want and move on.

I have no reason to believe the Queens body won't be in the coffin for the lying in state bit either - what would be the point of that and if they put the body in after why would Prince Phillip have requested NOT to lie in state?

This is a very disrespectful way to speak about the person whose kind gift of their own body facilitated your education.

It could also be very distressing to anyone whose relative has donated their body to a medical school.

I suggest you ask MN to delete your comment.

Some people are so closed minded and bigoted.

It’s perfectly normal in some cultures and shockingly, those cultures are alive and well in this country.

If you believe that these cultures wonder if the Queen would be in an open casket as wanting to ‘gawp’ you are a twat.

Many, many people, who are heads of state or similar have had open caskets. And people aren’t gawping.

It’s very odd of the posters here to assume anything different is macabre or simply wanting to have look out of nosiness.

My mum was from NI. We live in England. All my relatives on mum side have been brought home, for 1 or 2 nights before the funeral. Open casket. Mum came home one night before. Open casket. Family came, her priest came. Family came back the morning for the funeral directors to close her casket.

Extended family spent a beautiful night reminiscing, talking to her and grieving together. My 18 year old daughter hasn’t experienced it before, but felt it really helped her.

I fell asleep at about 1am and dad sat for the rest of the night with his head rested on the side of the casket and holding her hand. There was no gawping. Because we know how to conduct ourselves.

I find the ‘English’ way of doing things very different. However, I don’t judge it.

Dad will be coming home, even though he isn’t Irish. Because he knows it’s important to us.

I am in Northern Ireland. And I'm British. Legally, and culturally. And it's very much part of our tradition to have an open casket. I have family in Scotland and it's very much their tradition too. So I don't know where the idea that it isn't "British" to have an open casket came from. Unless, of course, by "British" posters actually mean "English"?