American Wakes
"Before leaving the subject of wakes and funerals, it may be worth noting that another kind of wake is common in Ireland besides the wake of the dead. This is…
Location: Ireland; United States of America
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Home Life in Ireland by Robert Lynd, 1912.
Before leaving the subject of wakes and funerals, it may be worth noting that another kind of wake is common in Ireland besides the wake of the dead. This is known as the American wake, and is held in the west in honour of those who are emigrating to America. It is a strange mixture of dancing and sudden lamentation which continues all through the night till morning.
It is not without significance that so funereal a name should be given to these emigration ceremonies, for the Irish emigrant is not the personification of national adventure, but of something that has the appearance of national doom. To be in a Connemara station when emigrants are going off by the train is one of the most torturing experiences that I know.
When it is a girl that is going off, she is almost carried along the platform in the arms of her male relatives, and the shrill lament that she raises as the train comes in is as terrible as though she were keening her dead. As she hangs from the railway-carriage kissing the men of her family good-bye, it seems as though they were fighting to hold her back among them, and the railway-porters have to struggle with them as the train moves out to keep them from being dragged away.
Sometimes the lamenting girl seems to lose her grief as suddenly as she found it, and as she arrives at various railway stations she leans out of the window to see if there are any friendly faces about which will be wakened into interest by her momentary tragedy. After all, the worst tragedy of Irish emigration is not the tragedy of hopeful youth, but the tragedy of the old people who are left. The tragedy of youth occurs amid the disillusionments of the big cities of America.
Robert Lynd, Home Life in Ireland (London: Mills, & Boon, 1909), 120-121.
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