Irish Funerals: Caoiners

"The Irish have been always remarkable for their funeral lamentations
 "The body of the deceased, dressed in grave clothes, and ornamented with flowers, was placed on a bier, or some elevated spot. The relations and caoiners (singing mourners) then arranged themselves in two divisions, one at the head, the other at the foot of the corpse.
Until about the middle of the last century, the custom was very generally adhered to in Ireland, and many of the elegiac poems, composed on such occasions, have come down to us,Usually, this role was for a woman who sat in the next room until the funeral Professional mourners wore long red skirts and black shawls

This is an example of such a lament

 "Lament of Morian Shehone for Miss Mary Bourke," which is literally translated from the original Irish.


"Silence prevails; it is an awful silence. The voice of Mary is heard no longer in the valley.
"Yes, thou art gone, O Mary! but Morian Shehone will raise the song of woe, and bewail thy fate.
"Snow white was thy virtue; the youths gazed on thee with rapture; and old age listened with pleasure to the soft music of thy tongue.
"Thy beauty was brighter than the sun which shone around thee, O Mary! but thy sun is set, and has left the soul of thy friend in darkness.
"Sorrow for thee is dumb, save the wailings of Morian Shehone; and grief has not yet tears to shed for Mary.
"I have cried over the rich man; but when the stone was laid upon his grave, my grief was at an end. Not so with my heart's darling; the grave cannot hide Mary from the view of Morian Shehone.
"I see her in the four corners of her habitation, which was once gilded by her presence.
"Thou didst not fall off like a withered leaf, which hangs trembling and insecure: no, it was a rude blast which brought thee to the dust, O Mary!
"Hadst thou not friends? Hadst thou not bread to eat, and raiment to put on? Hadst thou not youth and beauty, Mary? Then mightest thou not have been happy?
"But the spoiler came, and disordered my peace: the grim tyrant has taken away my only support in Mary!
"In thy state of probation, thou wert  kind hearted to all, and none envied thee thy good fortune. Oh! that the lamentations of thy friends—Oh! that the burning tears of Morian Shehone could bring back from the grave the peerless Mary!
"But alas! this cannot be: then twice in every year, while the virgins of the valley celebrate the birth and death of Mary, under the wide spreading elm, let her spirit hover round them, and teach them to emulate her virtues.
"So falls into the depth of silence the lament of Morian Shehone."


Take the time to listen to Iarla O Lionaird   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JEiuM_eHuw