‘There is such a huge sense of reward to be able to help people at such a hard time’

A PROP maker and designer turned funeral celebrant from Bective has opened up about how lockdown changed the course of her life and brought her on a journey she could never have envisioned taking.

Trisha Bonham Corcoran who teaches craft workshops and classes says before covid her diary “never looked so good” then as the pandemic took its grip on the world overnight her industry came to a standstill.

With no means of revenue in her field and extra times on her hands, the talented crafter who had been making props for clients including film makers, theatres, health professionals, photographers and catering showrooms began to explore an area she had developed an interest in some time ago through a personal tragedy.

Now newly qualified as a civil funeral celebrant, Trisha wants to start a conversation about the often-taboo subject of death and raise awareness of how planning ahead can take away stress is an already traumatic time. Commenting on her life-altering year she said:

“People see death as a morbid subject but it’s the one certainty in life, none of us are getting out of here alive, we all will go at some point, but it is something that people are slow to talk about.

“There is a superstition that if you talk about death, you invite it but it’s such a great thing to actually be prepared from a family’s point of view it can relieve so much stress.”

Trisha, who is originally from Dublin, says the interest in the funeral industry came about through her family’s experience of losing a loved one.

“The interest originally came from having a family death and the lack of the availability of churches and priests meant we would have had a very long wait for a funeral and I saw a little poster in the funeral home about civil ceremony and thought that might be an option and we went down that road.

“I was quite involved in the ceremony part of it and although it was quite distressing because it was a family member people came up to me afterwards and said it was the most beautiful ceremony that they had ever been at.

“I just felt this is the way forward, people need to connect when they are telling someone’s life story, portraying the person and the life they lived and it just really struck a chord with me and I was hooked.

“I really want to open conversations about what’s available, I think the biggest problem is people not knowing you have choice.”

The Bective woman started her journey in this new area and recently qualified through the Irish Institute of Civil Celebrants.

“People have suffered extra trauma through the losses through Covid because they have not been able to mourn and grieve and gather in the way that we would normally that brings an awful lot of comfort to people.

“I would love for people to know that there are options available to them now, they could have a memorial service now that we can get together and that’s where a civil celebrant can come in and create a ceremony that really bring a person back into the fore for you to honour and remember them properly and it can create a great deal of healing for people.”

Reflecting on a challenging period of time when like many people her livelihood was taken away, Trisha said:

“I used to teach classes all of the time to children and adults and a lot of my previous creative work would have been display items which nowhere was open for people to be displaying things so all of it just came to a standstill and the role of a celebrant is something that I had been interested in for a while, I wanted a change of direction and I wanted to train in something that would be more secure.

“I have qualified as a funeral celebrant, and I have just started my training as a wedding and family celebrant which I’ll hopefully complete over the next couple of months.

“There is such a huge sense of reward to be able to help people at such a hard time.

“With civil ceremony we do everything and anything it is completely led by the family and what the person wanted and what their beliefs were. If they want prayers or hymns they can have it it is all crafted around that person and what their wishes were.

“It is your life story, in our own family that is really what hit home and what touched people.

“Talking to other celebrants they were saying that they have had people playing Led Zeppelin to honour loved ones!

“That’s the great thing, there are really no restrictions on what you can do.”

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