Abstract
In his 1909 work ‘Rites De Passage’, Arnold van Gennep acknowledges that a ritual often contains ‘rites within rites’. So, it was with the ancient ritual of the Irish wake, at the center of which was another ritual, that of the keen, the Irish funeral lament. The past tense is used tentatively here, as in this article the author explores the resilience of the ritual and how, rather than becoming extinct, the keen seems to spend periods of time underground before erupting again in a new form, attuning itself to a more contemporaneous social situation. Drawing on ethnographic and bibliographic research undertaken between 2010 and 2018, the author traces some of the history of the keen within the ritual of the Irish wake and funeral and gives instances of how it is being reconfigured in the 21st century. This continuation of the ritual, albeit in a new format, seems to speak to a deep emotional and spiritual need that may not be satisfied by more conventional religion in Ireland. Finally, the author considers the keen’s relevance and place in Irish society today.
Highlights
Arnold van Gennep theorized that rituals often contain rites within other rites
This insight is highly relevant to the subject of this essay, which examines the ancient Irish funeral lament known as the keen, within its traditional context of the greater ritual of the Irish wake
This spontaneous family mourning, was more organic than ritualized and if we look at the following elements of the wake, we notice that, the first stage of the traditional keen was a spontaneous expression of grief by the family, it was: (a)
Summary
Arnold van Gennep theorized that rituals often contain rites within other rites (van Gennep 1909, p. 23). Primal instinct may be at its core, the keen was a sacred improvised chant that evolved over many centuries It was traditionally sung over a corpse and was intrinsic to the ritual of the wake and funeral obsequies. There are few available examples of contemporaneous keens Those that were recorded by collectors in the 1950s include keens sung by Kitty Gallagher 20 years, the idea of ‘waking the dead’ is experiencing a resurgence in Ireland, in rural communities This author has heard rumors of the keen being sung in island communities to this day, but the nature of the ritual is sacred, private, and shrouded in secrecy (for the historical reasons outlined below), making it difficult to collect evidence of its performance. To understand the significance of the keen, though, it is necessary to first understand its context—that of the ‘wake’
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