Sorry for Your Trouble: The Irish Way of Death

by Ann Marie Hourihane

The Irish do death differently.

Funeral attendance is a solemn duty - but it can also be a big day out, requiring sophisticated crowd control, creative parking solutions and a high-end sound system. Despite having the same basic end-of-life infrastructure as other Western countries, Irish culture handles death with a unique blend of dignified ritual and warm sociability.

In Sorry for Your Trouble, Ann Marie Hourihane holds up a mirror to the Irish way of death: the funny bits, the sad bits, and the hard-to-explain bits that tell us so much about who we are. She follows the last weeks of a woman's life in hospice; she witnesses an embalming; she attends inquests; she talks to people working to prevent suicide; she follows the team of specialists working to locate the remains of people 'disappeared' by the IRA; and she visits some of Ireland's most contested graves. She also explores the strange and sometimes surprising histories of Irish death practices, from the traditional wake and ritual lamentations to the busy commerce between anatomists and bodysnatchers. And she goes to funerals, of ordinary and extraordinary people all over the country - including that of her own father. 'I had joined a club,' she writes, 'the club of people who have lost someone very close to them.' And then, with her family, she sets about planning a funeral in the middle of a pandemic.

Sorry for Your Trouble sheds fresh, wise and witty light on a key pillar of Irish culture: a vast but strangely underexplored subject. Rich, sparkling and eye-opening, it is one of the best books ever written about Irish life.

Genres: Ireland, Nonfiction, Irish Literature, Death, History, Sociology, Psychology

288 pages, Hardcover

Published December 1, 2021

Reviews

[Majenta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enlightening and well-written, and what better finale than something more personal. God bless.

[Michelle Ní · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me. Quite messy and strangely paced. Reviews in the Independent heavily mention the author's attendance at Lyra McKee's funeral, was expecting it to feature heavily, it was 4 pages. There's some strange word and phrase choices. The chapter lengths were odd, stilted and just didn't work for me. The one part I did find interesting wasn't covered in great detail and there's no rhyme or flow. It reads like a first draft if honest. Which unfortunately I'm finding more and more in non-fiction produced during the pandemic.

[Jean Higgins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be prepared to cry....a lot. Ann Marie covers all aspects of death in her book. From funny traditional tales and clinical fact on embalming to stories that will hit you so hard you won't be able to catch your breath. Excellent read.

[MKF]

Not being from Ireland or part of of its culture there were some things I didn't understand.
There was one thing that stood out and that's in a chapter on death of babies in Ireland's history. The author ends it with a very detailed description of a slaughter house and death of young cows. I was a bit shocked to finish a section on the burials on unbaptized babies then start reading about a slaughter house. It actually bugged me a bit because I don't think that it should have been added to that section.
For the longer chapters that are broken up into smaller sections have some of the same problems. A chapter titled Heros involves people I wouldn't consider heros and many may agree. Maybe my idea of a hero is just different from the author of the book or the chapter title is flawed.
The book overall is an interesting look at death in Ireland but I just don't think it was put together very well.

[Joe O'Donnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has almost become a truism to say that “the Irish are good at death”, where in our traditional wakes the bereaved relations, the local community, and even the body of the recently deceased support each other in a ritual of solidarity. Ann Marie Hourihane’s “Sorry for Your Trouble” is a deep dive into that Irish way of Death.

Hourihane leaves few stones unturned (or, indeed, coffin lids unopened) in her quest to understand Irish people’s relationship with death. She spends time at the deathbed of a woman during her final moments in a hospice, and sits in on the embalming process from start-to-finish. She attends the inquests of those you have died by suicide, misadventure, or by overdose, and embeds herself inside Search and Rescue Services who are trying to retrieve the bodies of those who have thrown themselves from the Cliffs of Moher. Hourihane talks with gravediggers, delves into the history of bodysnatchers, and analyses the uniquely Irish phenomenon of rip.ie. Most candidly of all, in the concluding chapter detailing the death of her father, she relates her own experiences with bereavement and grief.

“Sorry for your Trouble” is a thoughtful but frank book that commendably avoids the kind of easy sentimentalities and faux-profound platitudes that other cultures sometimes reach for when trying to deal with death. Some sections of “Sorry for your Trouble” are less successful than others; the shorter chapters where Hourihane attends the funerals of public figures like Big Tom and Lyra McKee are a little disjointed and disrupt the flow of the book. Other chapters – such as the opener in a Dublin Hospice and the closing one recounting the funeral of Hourihane’s father – are simply stunning. “Sorry for your Trouble” is in places a challenging and unsparing read but also (perhaps paradoxically given its subject matter) ultimately an intensely life-affirming one.

[Fleury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good book, sometimes very sad, sometimes a little funny. Overall, it is a very enjoyable book. Tears a few times, especially about the babies and the cuddle cots.

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up from the library, I enjoy anything about death (Yes I am a bit morbid) and I expected this to be a funny story about how the Irish handle death, but it was far from that.

Ann Marie has found herself at people's bedside as they lay dying, provided support for family around losing a loved one, even witnessed an embalming! Just how on earth she found herself doing these roles is beyond me, we don't hear much about how she got into this strange business. The opening story about Bernie was how I expected the rest of the book to go, but it didn't.

The first story is Bernie, a lady who was dying and all about how they first met one another and the months leading up to her death. It was very heartfelt and eye opening as a first chapter which gripped me. There were other chapters around different people who were dying who Ann Marie had got to meet, but nothing like the story about Bernie. The embalming was a very interesting section to read, I am not sure I could stomach that but fair play to her!

There were lots of points of this book I loved, but a couple of small sections where there was a lot of discussion of history and some extremely Irish names and terminology which I struggled with! That's just a personal preference, I still really enjoyed this read and something completely different to anything I have read before! Also given that it is so recent, there is mention of Covid which has been horrendous for many people across the world, and just gives it a more real perspective in terms of funerals and covid and how each parts of the world dealt with it when the pandemic was really bad.

[Raven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucid, unflinching, and human, this book alternates between poignancy and humor. The author is kind and respectful towards the people whose deaths she covers and the communities which hosted them temporarily, but she doesn't shy away from the complexities of human existence, and I found a lot of resonance in that. (The poet's family who hated his wife and destroyed the headstone honoring their joint burial... are we sure we're not related? That's totally the kind of thing my family would do.) The author does a good job of tackling the difficult liminal places where Irish contemporary history and politics meets death, from unbaptized children to abortion to those disappeared in the Troubles to the changed experience of a covid funeral. If I had died during the time she was writing her book, I would have been honored to have my death be among those she chronicled. I'm saving my copy to lend to my mother when she's ready to read it -- we lost my stepfather last December. (I've read her excerpts, and she's interested, she's just not there yet.)

[Sasha H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few years ago, I decided to start tackling the paralyzing fear of death I'd had since I was a child. I've just finished this book, and it's helped a lot nourish my reflection. I wouldn't recommend it to my even slightly younger self, I think had I not been "ripe" and free of some level of trauma, it would have done more harm than good. I also think it'd be fair to add some trigger warnings for the deaths of infants, graphic abattoir scenes, and so on. I think I would have more carefully chosen the right moments to go back to my reading. That being said, Ann Marie Hourihane writes with tact, tenderness, ludicity and sincere curiosity and I did not regret entrusting her with my feelings as a reader. I learnt a lot about Ireland's particular way of relating to death and funerals, which I had hoped, but also recognised myself in an emotional journey that definitely felt universal. I found "Sorry for your trouble" a touching and sensible work on a topic sometimes hard to hear about.

[Aimée-Stephanie Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved, loved, loved this book. Cried the entire way though it, made me so much more homesick than I already am. I loved how Hourihane follows ordinary people yet makes them seem like the most important people in the entire world. It was so interesting learning about the history of some of the practices that I take completely for granted when it comes to death in Ireland, and interesting hearing how it varies even within Ireland.

[JC · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a good tour through death from an Irish lens.
It hits the personal level and then goes on a tour of Irish history (Northern Ireland, 8th Amendment, Catholic Church scandals). It's all tied together well but I had to go slowly. Then the last chapter hit me like a brick wall.

Would I recommend? Guarded Yes. It's an emotionally heavy book
Would I reread? Yes but not for years.

[Richard C Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book for so many reasons, fantastic well researched, humourous in parts but other chapters and the last in particular left me in tears. Will be tough read for some but fantastic for understanding how we as humans and society not just in Ireland deal with death and grief. This book will stay with me for a long time! Thank you Anne Marie Hourihane.

[Aliza Prodaniuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunning work of non-fiction. Death is something that we don’t talk about enough and Hourihane brings to the front the good, the bad, the ugly, and the reality of life’s cycle. I HIGHLY recommend this read.

[the real Italian reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like how all of the different stories came together on a personal note at the end of the book, and how each account had emotions running throughout. I did not get bored reading any of the stories and learned so much about not only death in Ireland but also the history of the country in general.

[Lydia Wigley · Rating 2 out of 5]

some chapters were 10/10, some were hard to connect with

I think this would be interesting as an educational read about Irish culture more generally, but it didn't hit the mark for what I was looking for, ie as a read for processing and relating to grief

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just excellent.

[Barbara T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, sad, occasionally disturbing

[Emma McKinley-Marston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful read about the magic of Irish communities, how we pull together in times of sadness, and how we really do do death well. It felt like home. A gorgeous, and, at times, hard read.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intressant, vissa delar var lysande medan vissa var svåra att förstå för en icke-irländare. Boken fick mig att möta och tänka på döden, som nu är ett mindre spöke. Det var också intressant att läsa om Irland som jag inte visste någonting om från förut.