GRIM WORK FOR UNDERTAKER DAVID
SLIGO UNDERTAKER IS TO FEATURE IN A NEW ONEOFF DOCUMENTARY ON RTE EARLY NEXT MONTH
DAVID McGowan came to national prominence when he endeavoured to open a glamping village with a difference in Enniscrone.
He hit the headlines as he brought various modes of transport to the proposed camping site including a disused jumbo jet famously brought by land and sea to Enniscrone.
It brought him television and radio appearances and he was highly praised for the articulate manner in which he got across his business ideals.
While plans for the glamping site are still live, not much has happened to the plan since all the different transport vehicles arrived on site with financing the massive project becoming the major obstacle to its completion.
But the day job as they say for Sligo native, David is being a funeral director and it must go on and he’s certainly one of the best in the business with funeral homes in both Sligo and Ballina.
And David is all set to feature in a new documentary to be broadcast on RTE in early December.
The Funeral Director, a one-off documentary, features the business from the perspective of David, described as pioneering and RTE says the programme” unflinchingly draws back the veil on an industry that is rarely spoken about.”
“The Funeral Director is a uniquely insightful and sensitive portrayal of the work of the person responsible for the last ritual any of us will undergo – preparation for burial or cremation,” said a spokesperson for the show.
The spokesperson added: “With unprecedented access to the procedures, science and etiquette of the funeral director, we follow David as he shares his personal perspective on the sombre business he describes as his ‘passion’ – a dedication he was thrown into when his father bought a country pub and shop in the 1970s and later discovered it included an undertakers business.
“When he joined the family business, determined to offer the best possible service to his clients, David travelled to America, learning his trade at Chicago’s Cook County Morgue - one of the world’s busiest mortuaries.
“In The Funeral Director, David recalls the daily workload of murder victims, unclaimed corpses and overdosed high school kids – a world far removed from the West of Ireland funeral parlours and wakes of his formative years.
“Since returning to Ireland in the 1980s, he continues to apply all the lessons he learned to a culture renowned for ‘grieving better than anyone else in the world’.
“Somehow balancing family life with the 24/7 demands of his job, David still finds time for other interests. “Determined not to be remembered as the ‘Grim Reaper’, he has a fascinating and well documented side project transforming giant vehicles into luxury ‘glamping’ accommodation, including a retired airliner a 767 which he transported by sea-barge to his land in Enniscrone. But even this has a connection to his day job.
“David’s friend and client Dougie Hopkins is a former pilot and biker in the final stages of terminal cancer. We join the two friends as David makes preparations for Dougie to have his cremated remains buried in the roots of a live oak tree planted at the rear of the plane.
“As David concludes his story, he offers a revealing insight into his own bereavement with the passing of his friend Dougie. A deeply spiritual man, David does for the deceased what they did for themselves in life – dressing to impress and looking their best for what he describes as that ‘ big dance in the sky.”
David says the documentary was three years in the making with over three hundred hours of footage shot.
“I’ve seen bits of it and I don’t know what people will make of it but all I did was tell the truth,” he says.
His 40 year career in the business began in Easkey and also at Foley and McGowan in the Market Yard in Sligo where he worked alongside Tony and Declan Foley and their father, Declan.
When David returned from the US he teamed up with Tony Foley again while also opening in Ballina. David now also has a place in Collooney for embalming and where there’s a garage for the fleet of funeral vehicles.
The late Tony Foley’s son, Andrew is also now working with David, maintaining the link between the two families.
“I’ve seen a lot of changes in those 40
years in the business and I went from rural to city settings and I spent a lot of time learning and training in the US and I still keep in touch with what is happening there.
“I got plenty of offers of work in the US and with the big firms in Dublin and Cork but I just wanted to get back to Sligo and it’s great to see that people still come to me for advice still,” he told The Sligo Champion.
*The Funeral Director* is produced by GMarsh TV Productions for BAI Sound and Vision and RTÉ. Edited by Gretta Ohle and Directed by Gillian Marsh and will air on December 11 th on RTÉ One at 9.35pm.