I’ll start talking about keening, the ancient Irish funeral practice here in an hour. Join me here. Please retweet #Keening 
Keening from the Irish word go Caoin - to cry. It is described as a crying or wailing sound. Performed over the dead by professional or semi professional keeners - generally but not always women. #Keening
When a death occurred, word was sent for the keener(s) t attend the wake. The keen consisted of a lament often using unintelligible words - ‘Ochone’ ‘Ologan’ and the repetition of the name of the deceased #keening
The keen was thought to contain magic words that helped to move the spirit of the deceased to the otherworld - it was an indispensable part of the funerary ritual. A death without the keen was seen as a spiritual disaster #Keening
It functioned also as a way for the community to express its distress at the death of one of its members. It probably died out (no pun) by the early years of the last century. Very few recordings exist. Here’s one from
81 year old (in 1946) Barney Gargan remembered hearing the keen accompanying a funeral to Moybologue graveyard when he was young. He described it an “ugly” #Keening
But it is not just in Ireland that the ritual crying took place. Here’s one from Sardinia. See the similarities #Keenlng
