An Irish funeral is a particular kind of ritual. An Irish person who attends a funeral overseas is struck by the differences: in many countries the celebratory element is absent, and there may be only small number of wellwishers, who are present by invitation only.
By contrast, most Irish funerals are public events, where any number of friends, relatives, friends of relatives, work colleagues and neighbours can turn up.
Funerals of public figures are different again. They are mostly still public events, and a media presence can add an extra complexity, sometimes strain, for bereaved families. Reporting on such occasions can be a challenge.
There were four funerals of well-known people in the past week: the musician Glen Hansard; the Oscar-winning actor Brenda Fricker; Michael Fingleton, a successful banker associated with the financial crash of 2008; and Hugh O’Flaherty, a former Supreme Court judge who resigned over his part in a national scandal.
In covering these occasions, The Irish Times is guided by the Press Council of Ireland Code of Practice. It says: “the right to privacy should not prevent publication of matters of public record or in the public interest” but notes that “sympathy and discretion must be shown at all times in ... situations of personal grief or shock” and that “the feelings of grieving families should be taken into account”.
The approach is generally to report on comments made at or around the funeral itself. If controversies from the person’s life are addressed, that is reported too. Career or life assessments are typically dealt with in an obituary or other report.
You can read here what Conor Pope wrote about the farewell ceremony in St Patrick’s Cathedral for Glen Hansard – with its large crowds, well-known faces and extensive musical production – and how Patrick Freyne covered Brenda Fricker’s low-key Liberties funeral.
Writing from Cahirciveen, Co Kerry, journalist Fiachra Gallagher wrote of Hugh O’Flaherty’s career achievements while also noting O’Flaherty’s family’s comment that their father felt “harshly treated” during the controversy that led to his resignation.
Emmet Malone attended the funeral of Michael Fingleton. His son William said there had been a lot of “vilification” in the media of his father, who had turned Irish Nationwide Building Society into a “multibillion euro financial institution that helped to drive economic development”.
You can read more on Michael Fingleton’s life and legacy here, on Brenda Fricker’s career here and on Glen Hansard here.
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Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann came to Belfast for the first time this week. The eight-day music festival ends today. With its celebration of Gaelic and Celtic culture, it could have been viewed with suspicion or simply ignored by the unionist community – but turned into that rare thing: a successful cross-community event in Belfast. In his column on Thursday, Newton Emerson explained why unionists went to the Fleadh and liked it.
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Our foreign correspondents have been busy. Naomi O’Leary visited the Gironde to survey the devastation wreaked by summer wildfires. Fire is a threat to the “Wine Geese” vineyards founded by 18th-century Irish exiles, but the real danger for the Lynch, Phelan, Kirwan and Boyd families is recurring drought.
On Friday, Derek Scally wrote from Berlin on a property controversy over “Hitler’s other bunker”, a wartime underground chamber that is loaded with history but also needed to mitigate the German capital’s housing crisis.
In Tuesday’s Global Briefing newsletter, China Correspondent Denis Staunton explained why Iran is currently in a strong position in the on-again-off-again negotiations with the US.
If you like regular analysis of how the world works, you can sign up for Denis’s Global Briefing newsletter.
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I enjoyed stories in recent days from Ireland’s wild Atlantic coastline, detailing the practices of drug smugglers in west Cork, the lives of surfers in Sligo and Donegal, and the impact of wild campers on Achill Island.
I also recommend this article, in which Ellen O’Riordan brings us up to date on the case of a UCD student who garnered widespread sympathy last February when the Dáil was told of her alleged rape and intimate image abuse. New details have emerged recently.
And if you like to listen as well as read, the Inside Politics podcast duo of Hugh Linehan and Pat Leahy have gone on a summer “deep dive” into the history of the Progressive Democrats, a political party that, despite its small size, had an enormous impact on Ireland. Episode one is here.
Conor Goodman, Deputy Editor
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