Irish Wakes & 2,000-Acre Cemeteries | 4M #115

Welcome to the hundred-and-fifteenth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #115, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!

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Imagine the weed-eating budget…

You might think the image above is a densely-populated Middle Eastern city. You might be right … mostly. This is Wadi Al-Salam, a cemetery in Iraq that is said to be the world’s largest graveyard — and with about six million burial places, it probably is. That’s about the (living human) population of the entire state of Maryland. According to the Hindustan Times, 3.5-square-mile Wadi Al-Salam, which translates to “Valley of Peace,” is home to deceased prophets, kings, and scientists, and has been in business for more than 1,400 years. And you thought your groundskeeping team was overworked….

What exactly are “wake games?”

Well those lads over in Ireland have done it again — claimed they’re better than the Brits at something. The headline “’We really do funerals well’ – Why the Irish deal with grief better than others” says it all. So according to a recent study, only about 10.9% of grieving people in Ireland suffer from Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD), compared to a UK-wide average of 15.3%. PGD is grief that lasts from six to 12 months. Researchers attribute the numbers to cultural differences. “They specifically referenced the wake and how there’s a greater sense of community within the Irish bereavement culture,” wrote a columnist with the Irish Times. “Basically, we’re all gathering around the person so it might help them heal a bit better.” Makes sense, and it does make you wonder if we Americans should adopt the Irish tradition of a two-day wake celebrated hired keeners as well as “songs, stories, music, laments, bardic poetry, riddles and often bawdy ‘wake games.’”

Hallfords denied reduction in bond

After leaving behind 190 decaying bodies in their Penrose, Colorado funeral home to avoid an arrest that eventually came for them in Oklahoma, Return to Nature owners Jon and Carrie Hallford are back in El Paso County — but still in the custody of law enforcement. In fact, both appeared in front of a judge last week via video to request a reduction in their respective $2 million bonds. Their requests were denied based on their flight as well as the preliminary 250+ charges that are potentially pending against them, including 190 counts of abusing a corpse, 61 counts of forgery and four counts of theft and money laundering. Their next appearances will be on December 5. We’ll keep you updated.

Taking preventive measures

While Colorado lawmakers are working to update their regulations in the hopes of avoiding another atrocity like that described above, the UK is doing the same due to an equally egregious deathcare situation. Between 2007 and 2020, hospital mortician David Fuller abused the bodies of at least 101 deceased women and girls. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison for these crimes, but as he is also facing two life sentences for murdering two young women, he will most likely die in prison. UK lawmakers believe that stronger oversight at hospital mortuaries might have prevented Fullers’ actions (or at least caught him earlier), so they are considering at least 17 recommendations, including “installing CCTV cameras in mortuaries, ensuring non-mortuary staff are always accompanied and that bodies are not left out of fridges overnight.”

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