My Father's Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love, and Die
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Death is a whisper for most of us. Instinctively we feel we should dim the lights, pull the curtains, and speak softly. But on a remote island off the coast of Ireland's County Mayo, death has a louder voice.
Each day, along with reports of incoming Atlantic storms, the local radio runs a daily roll call of the recently departed. The islanders go in great numbers, young and old alike, to be with their dead. They keep vigil with the corpse and the bereaved company through the long hours of the night. They dig the grave with their own hands and carry the coffin on their own shoulders. The islanders cherish the dead—and amid the sorrow, they celebrate life, too.
In My Father's Wake, acclaimed author and award-winning filmmaker Kevin Toolis unforgettably describes his own father's wake and explores the wider history and significance of this ancient and eternal Irish ritual. Perhaps we, too, can all find a better way to deal with our mortality — by living and loving as the Irish do.
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Kevin Toolis. (2018). My Father's Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love, and Die. Hachette Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Kevin Toolis. 2018. My Father's Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love, and Die. Hachette Books.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Kevin Toolis, My Father's Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love, and Die. Hachette Books, 2018.
MLA Citation (style guide)Kevin Toolis. My Father's Wake: How the Irish Teach Us to Live, Love, and Die. Hachette Books, 2018.
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- bioText: Kevin Toolis is a writer and BAFTA-winning filmmaker. He is the author of an acclaimed chronicle of Ireland's Troubles, Rebel Hearts: Journeys within the IRA's Soul. He has written for the New York Times Magazine and The Guardian and reported on conflicts around the world. His family has lived in the same oceanside village on an island off the coast of County Mayo for the last 200 years. He lives on the island and in London.
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- An intimate, lyrical look at the ancient rite of the Irish wake—and the Irish way of overcoming our fear of death
Death is a whisper for most of us. Instinctively we feel we should dim the lights, pull the curtains, and speak softly. But on a remote island off the coast of Ireland's County Mayo, death has a louder voice.
Each day, along with reports of incoming Atlantic storms, the local radio runs a daily roll call of the recently departed. The islanders go in great numbers, young and old alike, to be with their dead. They keep vigil with the corpse and the bereaved company through the long hours of the night. They dig the grave with their own hands and carry the coffin on their own shoulders. The islanders cherish the dead—and amid the sorrow, they celebrate life, too.
In My Father's Wake, acclaimed author and award-winning filmmaker Kevin Toolis unforgettably describes his own father's wake and explores the wider history and significance of this ancient and eternal Irish ritual. Perhaps we, too, can all find a better way to deal with our mortality — by living and loving as the Irish do. - reviews
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Starred review from January 1, 2018
A gut-wrenching exploration of death from an Irish perspective.Journalist and award-winning filmmaker Toolis (Rebel Hearts: Journeys Within the IRA's Soul, 1996) centers this work in his ancestral homeland, a small village on an island off the west coast of Ireland, where his father died of cancer at home. The author has spent a lifetime exploring death, beginning with his own brushes with it--first as a patient in a tuberculosis ward and, later, through his brother's excruciating and untimely death from cancer. The author went on to use journalism to explore violence, especially from a religious or political perspective; he has covered the Arab-Israeli conflict, North African fighting, and the Troubles of Northern Ireland. His experiences have left him with a fascinating view of what most of us try not to consider: the end of life. His own father's death, and the wake that ensued, ground his thoughts on the subject. Throughout, Toolis rails against "the Western Death Machine." In Europe and North America, he writes, we remove death from the private sphere and place it in the hands of "experts," ranging from coroners to funeral directors. "We need to find our way again with death," he writes, noting that for thousands of years, humanity dealt with death in healthier, more fulfilling ways. He sees in the Irish wake a pattern to emulate, a remnant of ancient methods of handling the mourning process that brought dignity to the dying and closure to the living. This book is not for the faint of heart, as the experiences he shares will leave readers emotionally raw. It is unquestionably rewarding, however, a thought-provoking argument against a sterile and industrial view of death.From the graveside of an Irish Republican Army execution victim, whose young son cries inconsolably at his loss, to that of the author's own father, Toolis provides a series of intimate, eye-opening visits with the end-of-life process.COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Death is a whisper for most of us. Instinctively we feel we should dim the lights, pull the curtains, and speak softly. But on a remote island off the coast of Ireland's County Mayo, death has a louder voice.
Each day, along with reports of incoming Atlantic storms, the local radio runs a daily roll call of the recently departed. The islanders go in great numbers, young and old alike, to be with their dead. They keep vigil with the corpse and the bereaved company through the long hours of the night. They dig the grave with their own hands and carry the coffin on their own shoulders. The islanders cherish the dead—and amid the sorrow, they celebrate life, too.
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