Ireland’s bad debt problems now affecting funerals

I find justification for the cost of funerals in Ireland much lacking. Bodies are normally not embalmed, the coffin (as opposed to a casket as in the US) contains the body for one day for friends and relatives to pay their respects, and then is brought (closed) to the church ('the removal')for a short ceremony, then overnight in the church and burial the next day. There is no need for extravagance which surely only 'benefits' the living. Give me a plain pine box or a shroud even and into the ground. I won't know the difference!

It isn't the dead that are affected by the recession, it's the living.Perhaps now we can all have more sense than money instead of more money than sense.

Havent met anyone yet who spent 9.000 on a funeral, and can't believe the 15.000 on a send off. The norm would be around 3.000 plus a few hundred on a meal for 25-50 people after. My ould lad says a cardboard box will do him, and I feel the same, the cheapest box going will do.

My parents from Ireland, where their families and neighbors buried the dead the next day in a shroud after sitting up with the deceased through the night, found "Irish" wakes disturbing when they cam to the US. They would never say anything about this to avoid hurting feelings. The Funeral Mass was said three days later, without the body. Their families could have afforded more, but out of religious belief kept funerals very simple.

The money spent on a funeral makes no difference to the dead person.

And what is it that makes $15,000 better than a stout pine box and someone to send you off with a prayer?