Multiple new websites are being launched as potential alternatives to RIP.ie since the popular online death notices platform introduced a €100 charge last week.
Eight months after the Irish Times Group announced the acquisition of the site, which had 3.3 million users in November alone, the charge of €100 per funeral notice took effect from 1 January.
With some funeral directors describing the move from a free service to €100 per notice as "excessive", the operators of several new online platforms believe they can provide a "cheaper" or even "free alternative".
Gerry Burns, who works with his family's funeral directors in Corofin in Co Galway, said a lot of people in the industry feel that the "excessive" fee is "not fair on families".
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However, he acknowledged that many pay higher costs for funeral announcements on local radio or national newspapers.
Mr Burns is currently working on a website called Funeral Notices Ireland which will be "free of charge" to funeral directors, he said.
However, he may raise revenue through online advertising for funeral-related services such as church music or cremation facilities.
Donegal-based funeral supplier Danny Morning’s business has been making name plates for coffins and wooden crosses among other products for the industry for 30 years.
Based on contacts with "hundreds" of undertaker clients across Ireland, he is setting up the Condolence.ie website to provide a free alternative to RIP.ie.
He told RTÉ’s Drivetime that "this website doesn’t have to make us a lot of money" though the site would help "promote our own products".
Currently, Mr Morning estimates that he has "up to 50% of the funeral directors in the country" registered to use his new site as an alternative or in addition to RIP.ie.
In Dublin, Blackrock engineer Patrick Quinn has set up a website called "Depart.ie" with plans to charge a "flat fee of €25 per month" to funeral directors to cover costs.
With several new websites vying to compete with RIP.ie, he predicts that only one of them will become a successful alternative and could even overtake RIP.ie as "a household name within the next three years".
RIP.ie needs to have some sort of competition, otherwise where do the costs stop?
Web designer Cormac Barry, who is based in Dundalk in Co Louth, agrees that the likely long-term outcome here is that people will use "RIP.ie and one rival platform".
He set up a website under the domain of "DeathNotices.Irish" in response to what he described as "the outrage" expressed by some funeral directors to the RIP.ie announcement of a €100 charge last month.
Mr Barry said that "death notices will be free" on his site which he is "open to changing the name" of depending on the response from the funeral industry.
He has plans to cover the costs of running a "user-friendly website" with "similar features" to RIP.ie through products like "condolence books and other add-on services".
He added: "RIP.ie needs to have some sort of competition, otherwise where do the costs stop?"
The new owners of RIP.ie, the Irish Times Group, said they had no comment to make regarding other death notice platforms, but stated they have had "no issues with the new charging system of €100 plus VAT" which was "well flagged with funeral directors".
'No fall off in listings' since charge introduced - RIP.ie
In a statement, RIP.ie said there had been no fall off in the numbers of listings on the site in the first week of charging, adding: "In common with many other websites, we do not release current website traffic information."
The statement also pointed to significant investment in "site security, staffing levels and extended customer care hours since the Irish Times purchased RIP.ie", with "plans to significantly extend its reach" due to be announced "in the coming weeks".
A spokesperson for the Irish Association of Funeral Directors, which represents up to 300 member companies across Ireland and previously expressed concerns about changes to the RIP.ie service, said it had no further comment to make for now but as multiple online platforms aim to compete with RIP.ie, concerns have been expressed that the "public good" of what was a free, universal service is "now in the process of being lost".
Shannon Mora is a PHD Researcher at Trinity College Dublin focusing on mourning rituals and technology in Ireland since the Covid pandemic, during which RIP.ie was even used by the Central Statistics Office for the most up to date mortality data.
Speaking to Drivetime, Ms Mora compared the sudden arrival of so many potential competitor death notice platforms to a "disruptive" or "wild west" scenario that will take time to settle down.
She called for a conversation among the public and even government as to how the "social cohesion" offered by having one central place for people to be informed and "participate" in funerals "in a timely fashion" can be maintained.
To ask them to go to "three, four or upwards of five sites is a lot to ask" she said, describing the "universality" of having one site to look up as being "good for the bereaved, for their community and for society".
