How did the Church express itself against the tradition of the ‘merry wake’ in Ireland?

Abstract

The merry wake was a significant element of the Irish folklore and it was also quiet common throughout Europe. The merry wake was perceived as a way to allow ordinary people to challenge the Church, even if they came to mass. However, the merry wake was condemned by the Church for various reasons. How did the Church express itself against the merry wake? Firstly, we will focus on what was the merry wake. Then, we will emphasis on the reasons why the Church was against the merry wake. Later, we will deal with the means used by the Church in order to convince people to stop attending merry wakes and their effectiveness. The merry wake was recognized as deriving from a Celtic or pagan cosmological tradition and was still practiced fifty years ago. It occurred at the death of a person, whose body was usually left lying on a hag bed and relatives, friends and neighbors were invited to visit the house which was called the ‘wake house'.