The country's newest museum, celebrating death but with the theme of "get busy living," has officially opened its doors today in Waterford city.
The Irish Wake Museum is the seventh museum to take its place in Ireland's oldest city in recent years, most of which are located in the Viking Triangle as part of a transformation of that part of Waterford.
Death and its traditions have always been part of life in Ireland and the new museum reflects that importance, commemorating as it does some of the old and modern rituals surrounding the inevitable.
Hosting the museum is a former almshouse, which was founded in the 15th century by some of the city's elders.
It acted as a type of hospice, caring for 12 men and women at any one time who were in the last days of their lives but who, while there, had to get up three times a night to pray for the souls of their patrons and the Waterford dead.
"We are in the dead centre of Waterford," Director of the Waterford Treasurers group of museums, Eamonn McEneaney said.
"People have been dying to get here for the last 1,100 years," he added, before explaining that the square around which many of the museums are now located was once a graveyard.
The almshouse opened on All Soul's Day, 2 November, in 1478. It was founded by the dean of the nearby cathedral, with the help of the mayor.
Mr McEneaney said: "It was all about doing good deeds, so people would pray for your soul when you died."
He said that such an institution commemorating death has not been done anywhere else in Ireland.
"If you look around here in Waterford, you have buildings all over which are associated with death," he added, before referring to the cathedral, the widows' apartments, the graveyard, and other nearby landmarks.
"When we're all at funerals we all think, 'that will be me someday in that coffin', so it does remind us of our mortality, but we want to remind people of their own mortality in the museum as well, but say, look, let's get busy living", Mr McEneaney said.
Acting curator and manager of the museum group Rosemary Ryan said the opening of the museum is the culmination of years of research and work, "about how the Irish have done death, since pre-history. We've been a collection of death-related objects for years".
"We've objects going back to the stone age, such as stone age axe heads, and we also have a bronze age funeral urn, where a cremated person's ashes were buried, and bronze age axe heads accompanying, and we go right up to the 19th and 20th century objects," Ms Ryan said.
"We have probably the oldest death mask in Ireland, of Fr Luke Wadding, we have funeral mourning jewellery, we have mementoes of different aspects of death."
Ms Ryan said visitors will encounter a "wonderful, atmospheric, spooky, but very respectful" guided tour, performed by "undertaker" Jamie Murphy. The tour travels through six rooms and brings the story up to the modern age.
Tina Darrer of Dooley's Hotel and the Visit Waterford tourism association pointed out that the area in which the Irish Wake Museum and other museums are situated was "derelict nearly 20 years ago" but has been completely transformed thanks to the vision and work of Mr McEneaney and others.
Ms Darrer said: "It is now firmly placed as the epicentre of history and heritage here in Waterford.
"The Irish Wake Museum is the newest addition to our attractions landscape, and it is really important to us here in Waterford for tourism It's going to tell the history of the Irish wake and I think that intrigues visitors to Ireland's oldest city."
Minister for Housing and Local Government Darragh O'Brien, who is opening the museum, described it as "an imaginative initiative which celebrates how death has always been a community event in Ireland".
He thanked those who supported the museum's opening, such as David Boles who was co-founder of the nearby Irish Museum of Time, as well as the late Dr Tom and Marie Cavanagh of the Tomar Philanthropic Trust.
Mayor of Waterford Cllr John O'Leary said the new museum is "a distinct tourism proposition in a global sense" and adds to the award-winning collection in Waterford.
The Irish Wake Museum is open to the public from this weekend, with €1 from every ticket sale to be donated to the Waterford Hospice Movement.
