COVID-19 and the Funerals in Ireland: A Strange New Normal

Heather Conway, Queen’s University Belfast

 

Coping with a different way of life is not the only challenge that we have faced in recent months. The global pandemic that is COVID-19 has aggressively dismantled our way of death as well.

 

Both the practicalities and the social consequences of dealing with the dead have had to be addressed by countries worldwide as part of the COVID-19 planning process, and Ireland was no exception. The government quickly amended the rules around registering deaths, allowing certification by registered nurses and paramedics to ease pressures on the medical profession and allow funerals to go ahead. Plans were also made for temporary morgues and enhanced burial and cremation capacity, to ensure that local systems did not become overwhelmed when the anticipated surge came, as they had in the Italian city of Bergamo when its only crematorium could no longer cope and bodies had to be transported elsewhere. However, one of the most striking features of the emergency provisions was the restrictions imposed on funerals. These are ingrained social rituals in Ireland, as families, friends and communities come together to bid farewell to the dead and provide vital emotional support to those who have been bereaved. Like so many things, COVID-19 has changed all that.

 

The law’s treatment of human remains has always been based on two things: respect for the dead, and public health concerns around decaying bodies. The first speaks to basic notions of human dignity. The second speaks to the threat of disease: the dead must be separated from the living. In pandemics the balance shifts firmly to public health. When we think about COVID-19, the messaging is all about washing hands, social distancing, self-isolating etc., but this public health narrative also extends to the dead. Dead bodies are potential contaminants, and protocols have been put in place worldwide for handling those who died with confirmed or suspected COVID-19. We see the practical outworkings in funeral directors wearing protective clothing; bodies being placed in closed coffins; families unable to see their loved ones one last time. Yet it’s not just the danger of the dead contaminating the living that raises public health concerns. Major restrictions were imposed on all funerals (both virus and non-virus deaths) to curb the risk of person-to-person transmission among the living as people gathered in typically large numbers for Irish wakes and funerals. This public health risk drove the widespread legal restrictions that were imposed in March, and with good reason: 6 people reportedly died from COVID-19 after attending the same funeral in South Carolina, and over 40 new infections occurred in a village on the Eastern Cape of South Africa when mourners congregated for a large funeral.

 

Funerals (unlike weddings) could still go ahead in Ireland when the pandemic took hold, as the government tried to perform its delicate balancing act of curbing the spread of COVID-19, while allowing families to cremate or bury to their dead in a dignified and respectful manner. In keeping with restrictions on movement, prohibitions on gatherings and social distancing rules (all core elements of lockdown strategies worldwide), major constraints were imposed on funeral attendance and participation in Ireland. The government stopped short of banning families from attending, no doubt mindful of the public outcry that greeted a suggestion to this effect by the Irish Association of Funeral Directors. Instead, attendance at funerals was strictly limited to what was initially a maximum of 10 people with social distancing maintained at all times to protect not just mourners but funeral directors, officiants, and crematoria and cemetery staff who have played such a vital- if sometimes overlooked- role during the pandemic. And, as the weeks have progressed and the R rate has dropped, allowing legal restrictions to ease, permitted numbers at funerals have increased- though these are still technically confined to members of the deceased’s household, close family members and close friends. Permitted numbers for indoor and outdoor gatherings should be borne in mind as the government moves through the different phases of its roadmap. Although Phase 3 guidance mentioned a maximum of 50 people attending funeral homes or any ceremony, some confusion remains. For example, even after legal restrictions on the holding of religious services were lifted on 8 June 2020, churches have continued to apply restrictions on numbers and social distancing, marking a very significant change from how funerals have been traditionally practised.

 

Of course, the same basic problems persist. At a time of intense emotional distress, how do grieving relatives decide who goes to the funeral, and who does not; and on what basis are these decisions made? Funerals are important social rituals that mark the life of the deceased; they allow family and friends to come together to remember and to mourn their loss, while drawing social support from members of the community who gather to pay their respects. For those who have been denied the basic right to say a ‘proper’ goodbye to their dead since the pandemic began in Ireland, what will the longer-term impact be?

 

To reiterate, the public health imperative dominates here- though what we also need to acknowledge is that, when governments talk about protecting public health in pandemics, they essentially mean ‘physical health’. In one sense, allowing funerals to go ahead recognises that this is vital for the mental health and wellbeing of the bereaved. Yet the emotional impact of altered funeral formats on the living is horrendous, and has already been highlighted by bereavement charities. Closed coffins prevent families from seeing a loved one who may have died alone in hospital or a care home, and who is now quarantined in death as well; and the wider social support that funerals provide- such an important part of the grieving process- is also lost when funerals are restricted to such small numbers. There’s no wake, no viewing of the deceased, no comforting hugs or handshakes at funerals, no post-funeral gathering: all such ingrained parts of our socio-cultural fabric in Ireland, and basic things that the bereaved rely on as part of their emotional support and coping strategies. Some adaptations have been made, to allow remote participation. We have seen a significant increase in live-streaming of funerals, something that demonstrates how technology enables us to stay together when virus-induced legal restrictions force us to stay apart. Yet many people still feel that it is not the same as physically being there, to pay their respects in person.

 

Every society prides itself on how it treats its dead, but COVID-19 has forced us into strange new types of funerals and new ways of behaving at funerals. Repeated government advice is that social distancing will be with us for some time, and that stricter controls may have to be reintroduced if infection rates increase and a dreaded second wave of COVID-19 emerges in the months ahead. It could be some time away, but one suspects that the traditional Irish funeral is one of the many things that people will embrace again, when they finally emerge from living and dying in the shadow of COVID-19. Until then, the final words of latest government guide for the bereaved seem pertinent:

 

In time this pandemic will pass. In time life will return to normal… Until then, we will all have to continue to say goodbye to our loved ones in different, difficult and, in many respects, unsatisfactory but essential ways.

 

Professor Heather Conway is Professor of Property Law and Death Studies at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast. She has author of The Law and the Dead (Routledge, 2016), has written extensively on family funeral disputes, and is a Council Member and trustee of The Cremation Society.

 

Suggested citation: Heather Conway, ‘COVID-19 and the Funerals in Ireland: A Strange New Normal’ COVID-19 Law and Human Rights Observatory Blog (3 August 2020)

 

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