Irish Coffin Rests in County Kerry

'Take a good grip on it,now, so. You've a long scamper up that cnoc beag beyond the Church and she's a Fat Heiffer at that, so. You rest it down half a mile on the cónra cloiche (Coffin Stone)above that mile.'

We Chicago Irish carry the coffin for about eighteen inches from the back of Bob Sheehy's Hearse to the coffin gurney - sometimes if the occupant were a career lard ass that heft is more than enough. However, our Irish Cousins ( invest in Mike Houlihan's New Documentary) continue to employ the full force of six men and true all the way to the Church and the Parish graveyard.

Here is an interesting oddity, learned in the pages of The Kerryman Newspaper.

"I also came across the fascinating phenomenon of coffin rests while interviewing people in Bonane outside Kenmare. If, say, a woman married into a neighbouring parish it was the custom that she would be buried with her own people when the time came. So the coffins were carried back on foot and the cortege made use of specific rocks as coffin rests," he explained." The Kerryman




"Thank God, she was a thin one. 'Tis a long hike up hill, so"

Mike Houlihan's Our Irish Cousinshttp://documentaries.org/cid-films/our-irish-cousins/