Req: Wake songs (NOT Funeral Songs!)

Subject: Req: Wake songs (NOT Funeral Songs!)
From: GUEST,Grieving Niece
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 12:06 PM

Well, as the folk process changes...

Our most beloved Irish American auntie got away on Thursday night last. Because of folks flying in from all over the country and abroad to attend the funeral, which is to be next Wednesday, there won't be an "official" traditional wake the couple nights before the funeral. Rather, we are having a viewing at the church just before Mass on Wednesday morning. Then family and friends are all going to the party after the funeral at a local Irish pub. So we're afraid that the party after the funeral will have to serve dual purpose, ie both wake and party after.

Since we all keep adapting to the speeded up global village, we're trying to think of "what's appropriate" for songs at the post-burial wake/party. Our auntie is of the age Irish American who loved the Irish American songs like Danny Boy and My Wild Irish Rose (both of which she sang frequently). But we're thinking of at least Danny Boy being sung at the funeral service, or just played on solo pipes at the burial.

Any of you creative Irish folk have any other ideas for Irish and Irish American songs to honor our beloved auntie? She was widowed at a very young age, and was a single mum to six children who she raised on her own, and never remarried, so the standard love songs oddly don't seem appropriate. I like the idea of The Parting Glass and She Moved through the Fair.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Subject: RE: Req: Wake songs (NOT Funeral Songs!)
From: Barry Finn
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 12:37 PM

in the DT see "Drentwater's Farewell" & "Flowers of the Forest". all the best to you. Barry

Subject: RE: Req: Wake songs (NOT Funeral Songs!)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Jan 02 - 02:52 PM

At a wake you reminisce about the one that's gone, and sing the songs they used to like, and the songs they remind people of. Or songs you think they'd have like if they'd heard them, and better late than never. The songs are part of the conversation.

So it all depends on the aunt. You've got two in there - and just because you've had a song at a funeral is no reason not to sing it again after.

Maybe Finnegan's Wake wouldn't do. "I'll take you home again Kathleen" (even if wasn't an Irish song to start with.) "Rose of Tralee". "Galway Bay". "Eileen Ogue". "If I was a Blackbird." "The Galway Shawl". "Carrickfergus". "Come back Paddy Reilly".

All the old ones people think they're too smart to sing any more.