The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1876-11-23
IRISH WAKES.
Pleasing Mortuary Customs in ireland and
Parts OF Great Britain.

Pleasing Mortuary Customs in ireland and
Parts OF Great Britain.
From the Dublin University Magazine
There is no doubt that the custom of
waking and watching originated with the
Irish III an affectionate feeling toward
their dead relatives whom their natural
kindness prompted them not to desert,
as it were, nor to leave to the attacks OF
evil spirits, who hover in their fancy
round the body to do it an injury.
Hence the lights and holy water. The
same idea, In almost the identical form,
prevailed in Cleveland, in Yorkshire,
where, indeed, it is only just extinct.
"The Lyke Wake" or "Lake Wake, !"
was maintained sometimes after the body
was laid in the grave, and there were
more superstitiOus practices than in Ire
land. In addition to the light and the
holy water plate of salt was placed on
the breast; these were held to be effica-
cious for the watcher as well as the dead.
Above all, the door was always either
wide open or carefully closed, lest some
fearful apparition should enter. The
reader OF "GHy Mannering" will re-
member Meg Merriles opening the door
wide when she was busy in her CHASTITY
ministration about the smuggler's
corpse. She also chanted some dismal
verse, something similar to the "Lyke
Wake" dirge which is sung in York
shire, but properly belongs to Cleye-
land:
This ae night, this ae night,
Every night and ane,
a fire and eet and candleight,
And Christie receive thy saile
In parts of the North of ireland there
was at one time, some forty or fifty years
ago, q rather romantic custom, that when
very young, unmarried woman died,
her coffin should be carried by young
girls only to the graveyard. AS this was
situated perhaps some fifteen or twenty
miles from where she lived, it followed
that the bearers should be changed every
second mile, and on these occasions
there was generally an escort OF running
volunteers, who in this way often did
their thirty miles in the day. This Gus
tom was called "shifting the coffin, %
and good many marriages was the re-
suit OF these excursions; but the idea
was, nevertheless, pretty and pastoral.
The Irish peasantry have an Unborn taste
for funerals, and in the amount of honor
done to the departed they lose sight of
the actual loss they have suffered.
"Och, sure, thin, it was fine bury
in; there was sight of people and a
power OF cars is as great eulogium
as can be accorded any man, and will
quite console the survivors. And the
reverse, "Och. thin, he did not lave
enough as would bury him dacent;' III
fact, they think more of how they are to
be buried than Of keeping lite itself.
The poorest and the most improvident
lays by something for his or her wake,
and I have myself known cases of pau
pers in the hospital who were accumu-
lating under their pillows little store
to save the disgrace OF q parish coffin,
that being the greatest and last misfor-
tune that could befall them. Douglas
Jerrold was much struck by this phase
of the Irish character, anu it is he,
think, who tells an affecting story of a
young girl whom he found in cabin,
busy at her needle. 81 see you take in
plain sewing; this is some bridal grand
eur, he said, taking up what looked
like an elaborate night-dress.
"'Tis no wedding grandeur" replied
the girl, proudly. "Sure, tits my own
shroud; let life bring what it may, Place
God III have dacent wake"