Kevin Toolis is the author of My Father's Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love, and Die. From His Q&A with Deborah Kalb:Q: In your new book, you ask, “How can it be possible to never talk out loud about death in a world where everyone dies?” Why do you think that is?--Marshal Zeringue
A: The local radio station [in a community in Ireland] reads out the deaths, 10 or 12 people a day. If we did the same in New York, the announcer would have to read something out hundreds of times a day.
It’s a small example, but in Ireland, there is a much greater social space around death. It’s more normalized. There are more ceremonies around death. All of these are really social spaces and physical spaces. The intermingling between the living and the dead is greater than in America.
I was recently at an English funeral. There were 16 people there. It started at 10 to five [o’clock], and we were out at 20 past five, and there was no other event. No one came around to their house.
Q: The book’s subtitle is “How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love, and Die.” Can you say more about what the Irish do differently, and what other people could learn?
A: It’s really simple. The wake is as old as the fall of Troy, if not older. At the gravesite where my father’s tomb is, there are Neolithic tombs. People were using stone tools and carrying slabs. We know often the tombs were used for 600 years. They had a mixture of bodies. The relationship between the dead and the living were important in those cultures.
In Western culture we’re embarrassed about death. How many people would go to the funeral of a colleague’s mother? We’re going in the office and walking over to the colleague and saying sorry about your loss. The courtesies of loss were more prevalent in the Victorian era in the UK and America. We’ve...[read on]