Power’s People

The virus has robbed us of a traditional last farewell

IT was the news about the funerals that really brought home the scale of the crisis this week. We were dealing with the handwashing and the self-isolation, we were theatrically sneezing into our elbows and fist-bumping for handshakes, we were joking about the toilet roll hoarders and about how if alcohol in hand sanitisers could kill the virus, what about alcohol in a glass… and then came the news about the funerals.

And suddenly an edict with a medieval echo shattered the thin veneer of scientific sophistication we’d trusted to spare us the fate of our ancestors in such straits: now we may no longer gather to bury our dead.

That most revered and unique of all our rituals, the one that distinguishes us from so many other nations and soothes us in the worst of times, the Irish wake has now fallen victim to the crisis. Funeral directors have called for the postponement of the funerals of Covid-19 victims because of fears that the virus could still be transmittable after death.

Instead of being brought to funeral homes to be dressed and prepared for mourners’ viewings, deceased patients should be brought directly from hospital for burial or cremation, they suggest. Dead bodies often gasp out their last, trapped breath in the funeral home, they say, and nobody knows how long the virus survives its host.

The cruel irony of this twist is that if ever there was a people who relied upon community, camaraderie and the comfort of friendship to weather a crisis, it is we Irish. Our instinct, on receiving or hearing bad news, is to cling together. If a friend or neighbour suffers a bereavement, we gather round them with support and solace.

Death and illness are the forces that draw us closest of all, they are the times when we are at our rawest and most vulnerable and we know that the ones who rally to our sides at our lowest ebb are the truest of allies. Every human community celebrates the good times, the weddings and births, but it takes a particular class of spirit to dress in Sunday best and muster in large numbers so as to sing, and joke, and toast and speed a departed friend to their rest.

Of all the limitations this still-evolving

IF THEY were anything like the rest of us, the Covid-19 virus would have been the main topic of conversation for Jacqueline McGovern and her friend and colleague Audrey Behan as they took an evening stroll together last Tuesday. Being special needs teachers, they would have chatted about possible school closures, the cancellation of the St Patrick’s Day parade, and wondered about their risk from the virus. And all the time an utterly unforeseen threat, in the form of a carload of thieving, speeding thugs, was heading their way. We can do our best to safeguard ourselves and our loved ones from the dangers we can anticipate but, truly, nobody ever knows what’s waiting around the corner. crisis will impose on us, perhaps the inability to give our dead a proper sendoff will be the most profound.

When we emerge from this extraordinary time, as we will, much about the way we live will have changed forever. This is the millennials’ 9/11, the event that will alter customs and behaviours that have, until now, been taken for granted. Hard though it is to believe, there was a time when you could walk on to a plane with a penknife in your pocket and any amount of liquid in your hand luggage.

YOU didn’t have to have your bags searched, or walk through a security scanner at the entrance to a public building. Today, though, these precautions are accepted as essential to keep us as safe as possible from a wily enemy. And now that we know how easily bugs and diseases are spr ead between us, the most innocent and fleeting of human contact is suddenly fraught with suspicion and unease.

Sitting beside a stranger on a bus or in a cinema, reaching out to touch a door that someone else is holding open for you, handing a note or a coin to a shop assistant, taking a glass or a plate of food from a waiter, swimming in a public pool, all of these everyday interactions are now freighted with risk.

Rather than seeking consolation in the humour and good cheer of our friends, we are cautioned to stay at home and irritate our families instead.

Rather than reaching out to old folk and elderly relatives who might be at risk, the safest course is to stay well away from them. Rather than considering the needs of others, we are panicked into stocking our own shelves with months’ supplies of basics that are only in short supply because of selfishness.

A month ago, we remarked on the rise of Sinn Féin – now it’s all about ‘Mé Féin’, or every man and woman for themselves. To pull together, as Simon Coveney put it, for now we have to stay apart. Covid-19 will pass, and all but the most extremely ill will recover. Whether our society recovers its relaxed good nature, or is left weakened by this contagion, only time will tell.