The family that stabs together

As you know, funerals can be tense affairs. Indeed, I remember being accosted by someone who started berating me for something that happened years ago and, frankly, it was almost as if they were waiting for a funeral to reopen their old wounds.

It was a rather odd and disconcerting experience, to be honest with you, but when I was telling some friends about it, they all had similar horror stories from funerals they had attended.

But I doubt any of us could top the case of the aftermath of Tom Ward's funeral in Mayo.

The family went on a drinking session afterwards and the dead man's brother, Charlie, has just been handed an 18-month sentence after he stabbed another man who had allegedly insulted the dead man's memory.

That's bad enough but it gets truly weird when it emerged that his mother, Brigid Ward, had heard the apparent insult from the assault victim, then approached her son and told him to attack the man.

The son, being a good Irish boy, did what his mammy told him and promptly took a large knife from his pocket and stabbed the guy, leaving him requiring stitches.

The whole saga begs many questions but one immediately springs to mind — who on earth brings a big bloody knife with them to a funeral?

I mean, I know I've had words with people at such events, but I've never heard of someone bringing a knife.

Maybe we're just posh.