How To Plan a Funeral in 5 easy steps
Here we will provide you with some of the key steps required when planning a funeral:
- Choose an undertaker or funeral director. Sometimes this can feel like the most time consuming and arduous task when family members are all in a distressing period, but unlike buying your groceries, we at Quinn’s of Glasthule believe that at this distressing time family members need emotional support and not to be spending their time hunting for the “best bargain”.
- Decide the venue to conduct the Funeral Service. This could be a Parish Church, Temple, Mosque, Synagogue, the Funeral Home, family home or Crematorium. This can be dependent on whether the deceased has left a will with instructions or they may have made references of how they wish to be laid to rest.
- Depending on the deceased or family’s wishes for burial or cremation, you may need to choose the cemetery, a plot or crematorium. This should be looked after by your funeral director. Quinn’s of Glasthule will discuss your options for burial or cremation and suggest local Cemeteries or Crematoriums. Ireland has four separate crematoria; Dublin has three Crematoriums located in Glasnevin Crematorium, Mount Jerome Crematorium and Newlands Cross Crematorium. The fourth is Island Crematorium in Cork. Access to these is not limited to Dublin or Cork only.
- Will there be a removal of the deceased from the family home or will the deceased be brought from the Funeral Home to the ceremony. Sometimes the family home cannot accommodate such a step, so the family may prefer to avail of the funeral home’s services to hold the removal to the Funeral Service location. A hearse containing the deceased and sometimes a family limousine or two (dependent on how many the family request us to hire) will “remove” the coffin to the service venue.
From the church, synagogue or other funeral service location, your Funeral Director will escort the hearse containing the deceased’s coffin followed by the grieving family and friends to the graveyard or crematorium.
If there is a wake, the limousine car usually will bring the family members to this location. If the deceased has been cremated, the funeral director will arrange to collect the ashes from the Crematorium. When you feel the time is right you can drop into the funeral home to collect the ashes of your loved one.
- Ask your Funeral Director to discuss clearly the financial implications of the choices you have made and the payment options available to you.
To recap our 5 easy steps to Planning a Funeral:
- Find Funeral Home Director
- Choose venue according to deceased or family’s wishes; Catholic or Protestant Church, Synagogue, Mosque, Crematorium
- Cremation or Burial
- Is there to be a Wake before the Removal to venue
- Finance, talk to your Funeral Director about costs, grants and assistance.