Washing the Dead
Dublin Core
Title
Washing the Dead
Subject
An audio piece on washing the dead
Description
Marie Crean recalls some dos and don’ts associated with laying out the dead.
Transcript
"I remember characters. There was an elderly lady that used wash the dead and the dying, and she was very particular, you know. There was just --whether it was her set of rules now or that it was a kind of a done thing in those days, and I remember like she got my mother helping her one day and she made my mother go in inside the bed to the person, you know. The bed must have been up against the wall and my mother was kind of ‘Oh no, you can’t go in at the top. You must go down to the end and go over her feet.’ And then the water that she washed the corpse in and the soap would be kept back, and when the cortège would move off the water would be thrown down the street after it. Then I remember, an elderly man died and the Little Sisters of the Assumption I think came to lay him out, and they were throwing out the water and she was keeping the water, and there was a tussle and they thought this was terrible. But no, it was the done thing that everything went behind the hearse, the soap and the water and she was a character."
Transcript
"I remember characters. There was an elderly lady that used wash the dead and the dying, and she was very particular, you know. There was just --whether it was her set of rules now or that it was a kind of a done thing in those days, and I remember like she got my mother helping her one day and she made my mother go in inside the bed to the person, you know. The bed must have been up against the wall and my mother was kind of ‘Oh no, you can’t go in at the top. You must go down to the end and go over her feet.’ And then the water that she washed the corpse in and the soap would be kept back, and when the cortège would move off the water would be thrown down the street after it. Then I remember, an elderly man died and the Little Sisters of the Assumption I think came to lay him out, and they were throwing out the water and she was keeping the water, and there was a tussle and they thought this was terrible. But no, it was the done thing that everything went behind the hearse, the soap and the water and she was a character."
Creator
Cork Folklore Project
Source
CFP_SR00391_crean_2010
Publisher
Cork Folklore Project
Date
26/08/2015 date file added
Contributor
Marie Crean (narrator/interviewee Cork Folklore Project)
Rights
Copyright Cork Folklore Project
Format
Mp3 file
Language
English
Type
Audio files
Identifier
CFP_SR00391_crean_2010
Citation
Cork Folklore Project, “Washing the Dead,” Cork Memory Map, accessed May 19, 2024, https://corkfolklore.org/cmm/items/show/7.