{"id":135465,"date":"2025-11-12T08:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T08:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/135465\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T08:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T08:22:07","slug":"lets-have-more-dancing-at-irish-funerals-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/135465\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s have more dancing at Irish funerals \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There should be more dancing at funerals. The thought struck me last month at Manch\u00e1n Magan\u2019s<\/a> funeral in the church at Gonzaga College<\/a> in Dublin<\/a>, that while we do wonderful send-offs for people, Irish funerals are generally lacking in the dancing department. It would not have seemed as glaring an omission before Manch\u00e1n\u2019s ceremony, extraordinary as it was in so many ways, but when dancer and Manchan\u2019s dear friend Michael Keegan-Dolan led the congregation in a dance that day it seemed so natural, so obvious, so essential. And as I wiggled my fingers and stamped my feet in the church for Manch\u00e1n I thought to myself: we need more dancing at funerals.<\/p>\n

I say this as a non-dancer. As the kind of person who has to be dragged up to dance floor at weddings<\/a>, even her own. I make a plea here for more dancing at funerals even though I\u2019m the kind of person who, having been dragged up to dance, only a few lines into the first verse of Dancing Queen or a CMAT<\/a> banger, will find a way to subtly shimmy her way back to a nice comfy seat and watch the movers and shakers on the dance floor from a more comfortable distance. Dancing in public makes me feel uncomfortable. Self-conscious. I can\u2019t let go. I fear my moves will be judged.<\/p>\n

When Michael, of acclaimed Dingle-based dance theatre company Teach Damhsa<\/a>, got up and announced he was going to lead us in a dance at Manch\u00e1n\u2019s funeral, my friend Gerry, aka Breadman Walking<\/a>, noticed the wave of mortification and discomfort ripple through the congregation. I felt it deeply myself. But we all got up and got into the spirit of things, as Michael led us through an elemental-themed dance inspired by Manch\u00e1n. We stamped our feet and waggled our fingers. We laughed and we cried. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Manch\u00e1n Magan obituary: Writer, broadcaster and explorer of deep-rooted connections between language and landscapeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

I talked to Michael about it afterwards. Michael says, and he should know, that dancing is a way of manifesting buried feelings and emotions we might find otherwise difficult to process. Dancing churns things up, stirs the physical pot. In this way it helps with grief and grieving. It wasn\u2019t easy for Michael to get up there, deep in his grief, to lead us in dance but it was healing and it seemed to shift something in all of us. We need more dancing at funerals.<\/p>\n

I wore a wolf mask to a Halloween<\/a> party recently. And, unusually for me, I danced a little. I hid behind the wolf mask and gently swayed to Barry McCormack, who was playing live in the basement of the party house. McCormack has a funny song called Tourist from his album Painting Devils about how he\u2019s a reluctant traveller. \u201cWhy are we here?\u201d he sang. <\/p>\n

It was the kind of Halloween party where if you weren\u2019t dressed or masked or face painted you looked a bit odd. I had a chat with Dracula and admired [Sid Vicious\u2019s girlfriend] Nancy Spungen\u2019s commitment to her costume \u2013 she had a knife sticking out of her stomach. I liked being invisible behind my wolf mask. I felt unselfconscious. Free. I was dancing like nobody was watching, just a random, swaying wolf. <\/p>\n

The next day I went to Manch\u00e1n\u2019s month\u2019s mind at the Hill of Uisneach. I spotted a lot of people from the Halloween party there, in different, more weather-resistant clothes. My friend Gerry gave out bread he\u2019d made from Manch\u00e1n\u2019s sourdough starter and some of Manch\u00e1n\u2019s remains were spread by his wife Aisling Rogerson near a roaring fire on the hill at Ireland\u2019s sacred centre. I was glad that Michael was there to lead us all in movement again. We chanted Manch\u00e1n\u2019s name in the rain, waved our fingers, waggled our umbrellas. It was comical and cosmic all at the same time. <\/p>\n

Manch\u00e1n\u2019s legacy is there in his books, in his words, in his television programmes. But his legacy is also in the creative way he and his loved ones planned his departure from this world. We need more dancing at funerals. More Druids. More Cree elders. More acorns. \u201cWhy are you here?\u201d Aisling asked the 2,500-strong month\u2019s mind gathering, and what she meant was that something deep had drawn us to this place at this time, not just the celebration of an exceptionally special person. There was something else, she said, a curiosity in everyone who gathered there, that had to do with that spark of connection that has come alive in so many of us since Manch\u00e1n\u2019s death. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Some people dream of their wedding. For me it\u2019s my funeral. And I\u2019ll be putting the \u2018fun\u2019 into itOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She read a short extract from his latest, as yet unpublished book in which he describes an \u201cinner urging\u201d in people that \u201cit is time to delve deeper into who and what we are, and reassert our connection to our ancestors, to the land and to the spirits\u201d. Then Aisling said, answering the question she\u2019d asked earlier: \u201cI think that\u2019s why we\u2019re here.\u201d <\/p>\n

The inner urging is real. And I want dancing at my funeral, which is hopefully a good while off yet. Specifically, I want Michael Keegan-Dolan to make up a dance and lead everyone, pink-cheeked and slightly mortified, in moving their bodies, stirring the emotional pot. My prediction is that Manch\u00e1n\u2019s funeral and his month\u2019s mind are going to gently impact the way we do things, the way we mark departures, the way we grieve. <\/p>\n

If anybody wants advice or inspiration for dancing at funerals, Michael says he\u2019s delighted to help and if anyone has advice for him on this subject, he is all ears. There will be more dancing at Irish funerals in the months and years to come. Bring it on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There should be more dancing at funerals. The thought struck me last month at Manch\u00e1n Magan\u2019s funeral in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[638,93,21008,61,60,24560,45578],"class_list":{"0":"post-135465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-dance","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-halloween","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-manchan-magan","14":"tag-roisin-ingle"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}