How are funerals so much faster in Northern Ireland than in rest of the UK?

[Masaladosai]

Sadly a relative of a friend passed away in Northern Ireland recently. From sudden passing to the funeral (burial) including open casket at home took three days. Compare that to the funerals in have attended in England in the last five years - all ranged between two weeks to over a month to happen. No complicating factors (eg need for post mortem, or police investigation).
Talking with friend, it seems that funerals are often swift in N. Ireland. And they often seem to take quite a long time to happen in England (purposefully not commenting on Scotland or Wales as I have no idea re there).
Anyone got any thoughts?

My friend’s mum passed away last week and the funeral (crematorium) was yesterday. Moved very quickly. North East England.

The wake thing is just because the name of the bit before, which did used to happen in England, has just stayed the same even though the gathering bit has moved to after.

Can I just ask people to not refer to our culture as horrifying, that is so disrespectful.

Your personal thoughts are it isn't for you. But don't dare refer to a tradition spanning centuries, which professionals psychologists note as being of benefit to the bereaved ,as horrifying.

My mother was laid out at home a few weeks ago, she wasn't on show to everyone. She was visited by those who loved her. They like us had an opportunity to say goodbye.

We sat up the two nights told stories, spoke to her and prepared for her final journey. It gave me and my siblings comfort and solace.

We sat up the two nights told stories, spoke to her and prepared for her final journey. It gave me and my siblings comfort and solace

Im so glad you and yours had the comfort of time with your beloved mum. It must have been beautiful.

And I think that unless a person has experienced a wake or something similar to the time spent with your mum they don’t understand just how lovely it is.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Well said. A bit of respect goes a long way

Exactly Toordarag.

As a funeral arranger, I'll give some background on why things can be so slow (in England at least).

Here, funeral homes are often part of a corporate business rather than an independent, so you'll have several funeral homes (FH) being managed by one hub. In my case there are seven FH managed by a hub. Only a few of the FH have their own mortuary/cold facility for the deceased.

We have 2 funeral directors and 7 funeral operatives looking after the 7 FH. These people have to have their time carefully organised as they'll be collecting deceased from hospitals/hospices/homes, collecting paperwork from FH and delivering to crematoriums, cemeteries and the hub, collecting ashes and delivering back to the relevant FH, collecting clothes from a FH and taking to where the deceased is resting, dressing the deceased, placing them in their coffins, taking deceased to a FH for a viewing and on and on. There's so much to be done. These are also the people who dress in uniform and attend the funeral so all the back and forth has to be when they're not on a funeral.

It's not cost effective for each FH to have their own fleet of cars, so the small fleet also has to be carefully scheduled so we can't have three different FH organising funerals at the exact same time as the cars and staff wont be available. The cars have to be cleaned and sanitised between each funeral and flowers loaded.

When organising the funeral we will ask the family if there are any dates they wish to avoid - birthdays/anniversaries/scheduled holidays etc. We have to liaise between churches, crematoria, cemeteries, ministers, celebrants etc, and their availability may clash. Often a family could have an earlier date if they opted for an early or late slot at the crematorium, but inevitably they want the late morning/lunchtime slot to allow for travelling mourners. If the family want an order of service printed this can take days to organise as they're done offsite and have to be finalised a couple of working days before the funeral to get them delivered in time.

There are hundreds of funerals taking place every week, and few crematoria to handle them.

Ultimately it's our job to do everything and make it as stressful as possible-free as possible for the family, but you'd be surprised what is involved and how much running around there is behind the scenes to bring it all together.

thank you for your explanation, 2old2Tango

@2Old2Tango
Interesting explanation, thank you.
But can you please explain how Jews & Muslims jump the queue & get buried or cremated so quickly ?

@Georgyporky I imagine because their religion stipulates burial that day or as soon as possible.

In Ireland we facilitate next day burial.The religious ceremony and body preparation is completed by members of their religious community.

It isn't "skipping the queue" it is providing services inline with their religious beliefs.

I’ve never arranged a Jewish funeral in my time at this FH but have done lots of Muslim ones. The burial is easier to arrange as cemeteries usually have separate sections for different faiths and they understand the urgency of a Muslim burial. The family still has to register the death, same as any other faith, but a burial can be arranged within a few days. There’s never any order of service to arrange and the Imams are extremely flexible and ready to conduct funerals quickly. We never have trouble getting a date/time at the mosque.

@2Old2Tango this is fascinating, would you consider doing an AMA?

I did one a while back under a different user name (I change regularly). If you search for Funeral Arranger you should find it.

@2Old2Tango thanks, I will have a look.

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No one is 'jumping the queue'. Muslim, Jewish and Hindu funerals must be conducted quickly due to their religious teachings. Many aspects of the funeral are organsied by the family or community themselves, rather than having to wait for professionals to have availability. Muslims and Jews are also buried so they do not have to wait for availability in the crematorium. They also have religious leaders who are prepared to conduct the service with very short notice.

There’s no jumping the queue in Jewish funerals. They have their own burial society so the body is collects by the burial society, prepared by volunteers at the burial society, there are Jewish cemeteries, everything is dealt with by the burial society, the family literally gets the death certificate which is done immediately and the funeral takes place within 24 hours. They will often do multiple funerals a day, they’re less than an hour from start to finish including the burial.

All funerals are identical and the only personalisation is the eulogy. No flowers, no order of service. It sounds weird but it’s an incredibly comforting that you don’t have to think about anything. This is usually followed by up to a week of evening prayers at a family member or friends home and this is much more personal and geared towards the deceased

Interesting explanation, thank you.
But can you please explain how Jews & Muslims jump the queue & get buried or cremated so quickly ?🤔

Im quite sure the figure for anyone from the Jewish or Islamic faith being cremated is next to non existent. And when it comes to funerals there is really next to nothing that needs planning because the funeral rights are set in stone and don’t need much organising. Where I live a person can die and be buried a few hours later before the next prayers. Someone dies and the loved ones just spring into action. Even digging the grave of need be. In fact one of my sons has been digging graves in our area since he was about 9 years old. Him and his wee pals would just get up and go to help out.

It's the personalising of funerals that creates the delay then? We have endless faff about who does a poem, eulogy, what songs, is anyone on holiday, important work events etc....

@2Old2Tango Interesting that availability of cars and staffing can be part of the delays in English funerals.

I had been thinking that it would be the crematorium that there wasn't enough off, rather than undertakes and cars.

Round here the delays are definitely the crematorium and the slots for death registration

Did you stand on a drawing pin?

More so with some of the corporates than independents. At least one large corporate I know it’s all about money and cutting costs sadly.

I have messages like that when the cat walks across my keyboard.