Just dying to be different

Whether you want to be shot from a gun or buried with your bike, self-designed funerals are all the after-life rage, and no final wish seems a step too far, with one company training Irish people to be civil celebrants. Conor Feehan reports. Funerals in Ireland have traditionally been a bleak affair, with the standard coffins, hearses, priests and processions. But a new age is dawning - and people are now dying to be different. A dramatic drop in the church-going flock, and a move towards self-expression and creativity, means that more and more people are steering away from the spectre of the sombre black umbrellas shuddering over the gaping hole in the ground - and towards self-designed funerals. The demand is increasing to such an extent that a group in the UK called Civil Ceremonies will be travelling here in the near future to train 'celebrants' in how to conduct what they call 'civil funerals'. Self-styled funerals can take many forms. The widow of James Booth, a shooting fanatic in Scotland, had his ashes placed into shotgun cartridges so that his mates could blast him towards the pearly gates earlier this year. And legendary science-fiction author Douglas Adams gained heaven by the unorthodox means of having his ashes blasted into space on board a rocket. Well he would, wouldn't he? The demand for personalised funerals has also resulted in the sprouting up of some peculiar services to cater for this niche interest. One company in Sussex, for example, will extract the carbon from a sample of ashes and create a memorial diamond from them. A bargain at ?16,000. The company claims that the process is a 21st-century version of Victorian mourning jewellery, where a piece of hair was cut from the deceased and put in a locket. Gayle Tandy, a crime analyst, had a diamond ring created from the remains of her geologist father. "I see it as a way of keeping Dad close, and this means he can be with me when I walk down the aisle and when I have my first baby," she said. Another company will, for a similar fee, fuse a sample of the deceased's DNA with that of a tree in order for the dead to "live on". And if you are an aquatic sort, or would like to sleep with the fishes as certain Mafia dons might say, then you have the option of having your ashes turned into artificial coral reefs. One process due to become available in Britain within two years involves freeze-drying the deceased before shattering the body into a powder. Promessa Organics, a Swedish company, has the blessing of the Home Office, environmentalists and the Church of England with its fumeless body-disposal technique, in which the dead are dipped in liquid nitrogen and then reduced to a powder by means of vibration. The resulting substance is placed in a biodegradable casket. Yet another method, pioneered by Gordon Kaye, a professor at Albany Medical College in New York, breaks human remains down in alkaline hydrolysis 'digesters' to a phial of sterile liquid and a powdery bone residue. In Ireland funeral directors have noticed an increasing demand for non-religious funerals, and say that some of the most successful and moving events have been ones where there wasn't a splash of holy water or the nostril-tingling scent of incense. The numbers attending Sunday mass has dropped from around 85% in the mid 1980s to between 40% and 50% today, and while a lot of lapsed Catholics are still buried with the traditional religious setting there are more people making their own arrangements prior to their deaths. "Most are still buried, and you get people putting different things into coffins to represent the personality of the deceased," says Gus Nichols of the National Association of Funeral Directors, adding that a lot of bottles of alcohol and cigarettes get secreted into coffins. "We recently had to remove a mobile phone from a coffin before a cremation because it would explode in the heat," Gus explains. "There have been cases abroad where people put a mobile into the coffin and then think it's funny to ring it during the burial," he adds. Around 10% of people now choose cremation, and that allows a different scope for the disposal of ashes. Seeing as we are viewed as an artistic nation there might be a demand for the services of Mike Smith, an artist from Devon, who is offering to make paintings using cremated remains, having experimented with cigarette ash. "A civil funeral can be a whole lot more personal, and we help organise many where a person doesn't want a religious themed ceremony, but still want the solemn event to mark their passing," says Krysia Niezgoda of Civil Ceremonies in the UK. "We already have celebrants in Ireland for other events like naming ceremonies, commitment ceremonies and renewal of vows, but we will soon be hoping to train celebrants in the area of civil funerals because we see an increasing demand for that service," she adds. While the National Association of Funeral Directors also sees an increase in demand for the more personalised funeral, it points out that the best way of achieving this is through cremation. "Even burial at sea is virtually impossible now because of fears of coffins coming back ashore, or being disturbed by trawlers, so cremation and scattering of ashes at sea is the best way of respecting the wishes of someone who requested a maritime funeral," says Gus Nichols. Environmentalists in the UK who like the idea of returning to nature through the natural decay of a traditional burial, yet don't want to be placed in a cemetery, can now avail of eco-friendly woodland burials, where graves are marked by a shrub or tree. Stephanie Wienrich, a spokeswoman for the Natural Death Centre, says: "Many people prefer a living memorial such as some wild flowers or a tree." But trying the same idea could prove difficult. According to the Department of Environment permission for such actions would require permission from the relevant local authority. Funeral directors here say the likelihood of getting this permission would be very slim, if not impossible. Unusual burial requests have been made here in Ireland in the past, like the family who were burying their son in Dublin and wanted his motorcycle to go into the grave as well. This request was politely turned down by cemetery officials. But you don't have to make an unusual request to have an out-of-the-ordinary funeral. Consider the fate of one woman who died in the US in the late 1960s and requested that she be buried on the Aran Islands. Having been flown from the US, preparations were being made for her Aran wake, as was her wish. Her coffin was suspended from a helicopter and an attempt made to transfer it to Inishmaan. But disaster struck when it fell from the craft and crashed to Earth in a townland called Paradise, in Co Clare. And the story doesn't end there. When her body was put in another coffin, a second attempt was made to bring it to the island but the coffin again parted company from the helicopter and the poor woman landed in a watery grave. The coffin was never recovered, so she got a burial at sea whether she liked it or not.

WHAT'S HOT IN FASHION AND BEAUTY

Luxury French fashion house Hermes finally arrived in Ireland last week in a flourish of leather and silk. The company which has 254 stores all over the world from Honolulu to Guam opened its doors in Brown Thomas in Dublin. The brand has been a favourite with Jackie Onassis, Ingrid Bergman and of course Grace Kelly. And of course there is the Birkin bag which has a waiting list, and a price tag that starts at around ?5,000. The company started out making saddles but now produces clothes, perfumes and jewellery. The concept manager, Veronique Duchesne says, "Dublin is a 'magasin-bijou', a little gem of a store: it may be on a small scale but it displays all the crafts of the House of Hermes with simplicity and clarity. "The opening of the Dublin store is like an echo of all those magic moments of birth that have marked out the history of Hermes since its discreet beginnings in Paris, as a maker of harnesses and saddles." Quite! So if you're ready for a rebirth or just a nose around some top flight accessories you know where to go. BEAUTY The pubs may be smoke free but the looks for eyes this Autumn/Winter is anything but. Judge for yourself as Catherine Zeta Jones - the new face of Elizabeth Arden - is wearing the new Elizabeth Arden collection out in the stores this week. The Color Intrigue eye kit (?27) has five sets of colours. Catherine's eyes are made up with Vintage, dusted with Sparkle on the brow bone, Jewel on the outer corner and layered with the darkest colour Urban. They have also used a the Smoky Eyes powder pencil (?15) smudged on the upper lid in Smolder (black) and lined on the lower lashes with Seduce (plum). Double Density maximum volume mascara in black (?18) has been used on her lashes. The lipstick is part of a Color Intrigue lip kit (?27).