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This is the story of the ancient Gaelic burial tradition, seen to be so transgressive that both the British government and the Catholic Church fought to erase it entirely.

Despite fierce political and religious opposition, public humiliation, whipping, beating and excommunication,

the Keening Women of Ireland continued to appear at the

graveside of Irish funerals, arriving to wail, sing and violently grieve the dead, as they had done for over

a thousand years. From the long and winding corpse roads to the folklore curse of hungry grass,

today we will be digging into the hidden history of death and defiance in Ireland. This is after dark and this is the history of

ancient Irish funerary rites. You've been up all night beside your lost love's body.

You helped hammer together the coffin in the yard.

You served drinks to visitors.

Now you're at the graveside, with the long, straight line of Atlantic waves and the greystone churchyard walls bounding you in.

All around you, some standing, some sitting on tombstones are your people.

They are beginning to keen.

It is a wild crying for the dead, led by the women possessed with an ecstasy of grief.

You watch your kith and kin sway to and fro,

bending their heads against gravestones,

calling out to the dead in a sobbing chant.

The sky darkens as the coffin is lowered into the grave.

...