A LOCAL funeral director has shared his harrowing memories of funerals during a global pandemic.
Pat Blake from Derrylin has recalled having to bury people when family or loved ones were not allowed to attend due to coronavirus restrictions.
“It seems like a lifetime ago the whole Covid era but the incidents are like yesterday,” he said.
“Particularly as a funeral director in the South Fermanagh area, the occasions that arose through the early stages of Covid will last in my memory forever.
“Particularly funerals where families were unable to attend the church or where the next of kin were also down with Covid and had to go through the whole grief of arranging a funeral and seeing the funeral through without being able to become involved with the normal procedures that surround a traditional funeral,” added the funeral director.
Mr Blake remembers a heartbreaking instance when a husband was unable to attend his wife’s funeral.
“There were really sad occasions when in one particular instance the husband was unable to attend his wife’s funeral at the very early stages of Covid,” he recalled. “Other occasions where remains were unable to be brought into the church and they were parked outside and the funeral service or Mass took place inside the church.”
Looking back Mr Blake feels that perhaps the precautions that were in place at the time were stricter than necessary.
“Probably in hindsight the precautions that were being advised from the various departments were probably over the top but nobody was to know that at the time. You had to go with whatever advice was being offered and it was a very serious situation so nobody was in the position to challenge that,” explained the funeral director.
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