Say Farewell, Your Way

My new book! YIPPPEEEE!!! Delighted to announce its arrival - one more thing crossed off my bucket list.

Say Farewell Your Way

A Funeral Planning Guide for Ireland

by Jennifer Muldowney

 

                   

 

Despite the fact that human beings have a 100% mortality rate, many people in Ireland feel uncomfortable about discussing death. A new book, SAY FAREWELL YOUR WAY aims to change all that. With practical information on digital legacies, cremation, organ donation, and alternative funerals it casts a refreshing light on Ireland’s long-standing taboo.

 

The book will be launched at Madison, 6-8 Wicklow Street, Dublin 2 (beside Tower Records) on Thursday 13^th June from6.00pm to 8.00pm and YOU are invited!!

Books can be purchase on amazon.com, .co.uk and www.farewellfuneralplanners.ie

The Dash

The Dash

by Linda Ellis copyright 1996

I read of a man who stood to speak

at the funeral of a friend.

He referred to the dates on her tombstone,

from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth

and spoke of the following date with tears,

but he said what mattered most of all

was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time

that she spent alive on earth.

And now only those who loved her

know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own,

the cars…the house…the cash.

What matters is how we live and love

and how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.

Are there things you’d like to change?

For you never know how much time is left

that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

to consider what’s true and real

and always try to understand

the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger

and show appreciation more

and love the people in our lives

like we’ve never loved before. 

If we treat each other with respect

and more often wear a smile,

remembering that this special dash

might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is being read,

with your life’s actions to rehash…

would you be proud of the things they say

about how you spent YOUR dash?

Copyright Linda Ellis see http://lindaellis.net for more details.

Zach Sobiech

Zach Sobiech, aged just 14, found out he had a rare form of terminal cancer (Osteosarcoma). 

Life tried to beat him down but he lived it anyway - the way and for as long as he could.

He passed away - May 20, 2013. Watch his beautiful story.

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Britain's Got Talent 2013

Britain's got talent or has Hungary?! STUNNING performance from Hungary theatre group.

Just over a 3 minutes of life...and death.

I LOVE IT.

Mount Jerome

On 19 September 1836 Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, Ireland was consecrated.

Reverend Stephen Jerome, then vicar of St. Kevin's Parish gave the cemetery its namesake through the estate he established in his own name.

Mount Jerome was the first privately owned cemetery in Ireland, when it first opened in 1836.

It got a famous mention in James Joyce's Ulysses, as it was the burial ground for many of Dublin's Protestants. It was not until the 1920's that the first Catholic burials took place there.

"Then Mount Jerome for the protestants. 

Funerals all over the world everywhere every minute. 

Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick. 

Thousands every hour. Too many in the world."

In Mount Jerome Cemetery Dublin there is a monument in memoriam to the Wilde family - family of Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde or as we all know him - Oscar Wilde, Irish writer and poet. After writing in different formats throughout the 1880s, he went on to become one of London's most beloved and popular playwrights in the early 1890s.

"To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” - Oscar Wilde

Other people of note buried there include Thomas Davis, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, John Millington Synge, Jack B. Yeats, Sir William Rowan Hamilton and George Petrie.

Invitation to the Irish Showcase Secaucus

Milo O’Shea

http://irishphotoarchive.blogspot.ie/2012/11/milo-oshea.html

Irish actor Milo O’Shea passed away in New York last night (2 June 1926 – 2 April 2013).

Born and raised in Dublin, the veteran actor went to the Christian Brothers school in Synge Street.

O’Shea lived in New York, where he moved in 1976.

Described by Minister for Arts Jimmy Deenihan as “a giant of stage and screen” .
“During his career in theatre and film, both at home and abroad, he is remembered for the quality of his performances in a range of challenging and often ground-breaking roles”


Notable Roles:

• Leopold Bloom in the 1967 film adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses in 1967
• Neil Jordan’s 1997 film The Butcher Boy
• 1968 Romeo and Juliet 
• American sitcom Cheers
• 1960s BBC sitcom Me Mammy 
• US comedy Frasier 
• US political drama the West Wing
• Roger Vadim's movie Barbarella as a mad scientist
• Most recently in Irish comedy The Matchmaker

He is survived by his wife the actress Kitty Sullivan, his sons - Colm, Steven and his three grandchildren. He was previously married to Glenroe actor Maureen Toal who died last year but couple divorced in 1974.