As a professionally trained Funeral Celebrant by the IIOC, I work with families to design custom personalised funerals and memorial ceremonies for their loved ones. My role is to create and coordinate a ceremony that reflects your deceased loves ones personality, culture, values and wishes.   

Simply put, a civil funeral is for everyone. It is a celebration of a life lived.

A civil funeral ceremony reflects the beliefs, wishes, values and cultural traditions of the person who has died. As the ceremony is designed by those closest to the person who has died, it will fulfil their need to celebrate, pay tribute and say goodbye to their loved one in a truly unique way. And because the ceremony is made especially for the person who has passed, it satisfies the expectations of all those who gather to say goodbye to the departed and allows them to leave the ceremony with a true sense of the person.      

Because the ceremony is crafted especially for the person who has died, each ceremony will be different and therefore there is no set format for a civil funeral ceremony. However, most civil funeral ceremonies will have an opening welcome and will contain music, readings and times of reflection. At the heart of the ceremony will be a life tribute or eulogy. The ceremony usually closes with the committal where we say goodbye to the departed.

You can choose to be as involved as you wish in the ceremony. You can choose to lead part of the funeral ceremony yourself or I can lead the ceremony completely for you. Other people may like to be involved and we can easily include them in the ceremony.  

Civil funerals can be held in a person’s home, at a funeral home, at a crematorium or at a burial site. Civil funerals cannot be performed within a place of worship such as a church.

This is very dependent on the location of the ceremony and what you wish to include in the ceremony.

For instance, if the funeral ceremony is being conducted in a crematorium, funeral home or at a graveside, there will be time restraints. Your funeral director will be able to advise you on potential time restrictions when you speak with them. Typically funeral ceremonies can last anything from 20 mins to 1 hour.

If you are having a ceremony at a home or a ceremony without a body (a memorial ceremony), time is not as limited but normally will still not take longer than 1 hour.

It is my role as celebrant to lead a ceremony that is appropriate to the circumstances available. I will always create a ceremony that is suitable for the timeframe provided.   

During the consultation, I will spend time with you and your family, asking you some questions about the person who has died so that we can begin to create a fitting tribute to them. You should feel free to share stories, memories and information about your loved one with me. I am there to help and guide you and I will treat everything you share with the upmost respect, sensitivity and professionalism.

I have a wide range of resources available including poems, readings and song lyrics which I will guide you through if you do not have anything specific in mind already.

Consultations can be held in your home, at the funeral home, via phone or video chat. Consultations are usually recorded for reference purposes when creating the ceremony, particularly the life tribute / eulogy. Permission is always requested before any recording is made and once the ceremony is finalised and agreed the recording is deleted.

Absolutely you can write and deliver a life tribute yourself. I will be there to help you if you need it and will ensure that you are able to deliver a beautiful tribute to your loved one. I am professionally trained to craft bespoke ceremonies and I can write and deliver a life tribute which we will agree upon together.  

As a Civil Funeral Celebrant, I am unaffiliated with any religions or faiths. Therefore, I can provide you with the freedom to design a ceremony that completely celebrates who your loved one was in life, without restrictions. There is no set formula for civil funerals so you have the freedom of choice. You may want the ceremony to be religious, secular or a mixture of both. You can also choose to include specific cultural traditions that are important to your family. Whatever you decide, I am here to guide and support you through the whole process.

You can absolutely include your loved ones favourite music, poetry, lyrics or even extracts from their favourite books in the ceremony. You can even include some of their favourite sayings, slogans or catchphrases. We will discuss all of this together at the consultation and agree how to include these elements throughout the ceremony.

The funeral director will normally engage with and make the initial arrangements directly with the celebrant. Once the funeral director has contacted me, I will phone you soon after this to arrange a consultation. I will then liaise with the funeral director regarding the ceremony arrangements on your behalf.

Alternatively, if you wish to hold a ceremony without a body, for example a Memorial or Scattering of Ashes ceremony or you wish to enquire about Pre-Death Planning, you can contact me directly here or by phoning (+353) 87 409 3993 and we can arrange a consultation.