The Good Death and the Materiality of Mourning: Nineteenth- to Twentieth-Century Coastal Ireland
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The Good Death and the Materiality of Mourning: Nineteenth- to Twentieth-Century Coastal Ireland Ian Kuijt 1 & Meredith S. Chesson 1 & Sara Morrow 2 & Diarmuid Ó Giolláin 3 & Ryan Lash 4 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Drawing on folklore, oral history, songs, historic ethnography, literature, and archaeology, this study investigates the economic, social, and material evidence of traditional late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century wakes along coastal Ireland through the lens of an archaeological case study on the island of Inishark. We analyze material practices of “good” and “bad” deaths, and explore the myriad ways that islanders used everyday material culture in mortuary rituals, particularly wakes and funerals. We argue that material culture could hold multiple symbolic valences throughout its history, especially everyday items used in ritual contexts. Finally, we describe the material residues associated with mourning practices on Inishark. Keywords Mourning . Mortuary . Ireland . Wake . Materiality
* Ian Kuijt [email protected] Meredith S. Chesson [email protected] Sara Morrow [email protected] Diarmuid Ó Giolláin [email protected] Ryan Lash [email protected]
1
Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
2
Independent Scholar, Arlington, VA, USA
3
Department of Irish Language & Literature, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
4
Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
Amhrán Mhuínse/The Song of Muínis [Mweenish] (unattributed, date unknown, translation from Líadan 2006)
If I have my children home with me the night that I will die, They will wake me in mighty style three nights and three days; There will be fine clay pipes and kegs that are full, And there will be three mountainy women to keen me when I’m laid out. And cut my coffin out for me, from the choicest brightest boards; And if Seán Hynes is in Muínis, let it be made by his hand. Let my cap and my ribbon be inside in it, and be placed stylishly on my head, And Big Paudeen will take me to Muínis for rough will be the day. And as I go west by Inse Ghainimh, let the flag be on the mast. Oh, do not bury me in Leitir Calaidh, for it’s not where my people are, But bring me west to Muínis, to the place where I will be mourned aloud; The lights will be on the dunes, and I will not be lonely there. Most human communities possess notions of what constitutes a good death: hopes and fears about the nature of one’s life experience prior to death, the timing and circumstances of death itself, and the practices of mourning. Funerary and mourning practices in particular allow the living to confront death and to commemorate those whom they have lost and to cherish what remains. This paper considers the various ways that material culture acts as scaffolding for mourning, with particular attention to the context of coastal and island communities in western Irelan
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