Comedian Sean to have Irish wake
COMEDIAN Sean Hughes will have his dying wish for a traditional Irish wake fulfilled later today after his funeral in London.
Tributes have poured in after the unexpected death of the 51-year old star last week.
He died in hospital on October 16, following a suspected heart attack.
Hughes, who is also understood to have suffered liver disease, had previously written about how he would like to be treated in the event of his death.
In a poem called Death, published in a 1994 memoir, he outlines that he wanted a cheerful funeral because he knew ‘how boring funerals can be’.
He said he wanted ‘people to gather, meet new people, have a laugh, a dance, meet a loved one. I want people to have free drink all night.’
He also outlined his wish to be cremated and to have ‘ashes scattered in a bar, on the floor, mingle with sawdust’.
Friends and former colleagues are expected to join chief mourners today for Hughes’s funeral service at 3.30pm at Islington and Camden Cemetery, London. His bereaved family have requested family flowers only with donations in lieu, if desired, to ‘any charity you hold dearly’.
‘There will be a wake after the service, at a venue yet to be announced,’ the death notice states.
Hughes was born in London and grew up in Firhouse, Dublin. He was the youngest winner of the Edinburgh Festival’s Perrier Award at the age of 24 in 1990.
In 1992 he had his own TV show, Seán’s Show, ostensibly set in his own home. It received a nomination for the 1992 British Comedy Award.
He was team captain on BBC2’s Never Mind The Buzzcocks from 1996 to 2002.
His death notice, published over the weekend, states that Hughes, who lived in Crouch End, London, died ‘after a short illness’.
Predeceased by his parents John and Theresa, the comedian is survived by brothers Alan and Martin, sisters-in-law Andrea and Kirsti, nephew Tom and nieces Niamh, Molly and Willow, extended family and ‘the many personal and professional friends he bonded with over the years’.
Among the many who paid tribute following the shock announcement of his death last Monday were fellow Irish comics Dara Ó Briain, Aisling Bea and Jason Byrne.
Hughes’s death came just nine months after the sad passing of his Cork-born mother Theresa (Terry), who died peacefully at Tallaght Hospital, Dublin, on January 5, 2017.