The Whiskey Wakes
When the priest entered the house, the dead man was laid out on the bed with a lit pipe of tobacco in his mouth
So much whiskey was drunk at Irish funeral wakes in Victorian Manchester that even the Catholic priests tried to stop them from happening.
In the hard-living world of working class districts including Ancoats and Angel Meadow, death was ever present and the loss a wage-earning relative could send a whole family spiralling into the workhouse.
So it was no surprise that the old Irish tradition of gathering to pray over the body on the eve of the funeral saw people “drowning grief by getting drunk”, as one journalist put it when he toured the streets with a census taker.
“One house was shut up, and on applying at the neighbour for particulars, the answer given by one of its occupants was ‘Oh, they’re drunk’,” he wrote.
“The other objected, and said, ‘No, they’re burying a relation’, which elicited the reply ‘Well, it’s all the same’.”
In two other instances, the journalist found the state of the room was excused by the head of the household on the grounds of a death in the family.
When another reporter slipped into the kitchen of the lodging house owned by the thief trainer Cabbage Ann, he found a wake taking place for a renowned pickpocket or “gun”.
“From the upper regions came noises which showed that something unusual was taking place and great was our surprise when, in answer to a question as to what was up there, one of the women jerked out, ‘A dead man, if ye want to know’,” he wrote.
“Such indeed was the case, for a member of he fraternity, eminent as a pickpocket, had died a day or two before, and the wake was now being held with all due honours.”
The journalist was warned not to go upstairs as Cabbage herself was superintending the wake.
The woman downstairs in the kitchen who had shouted at the journalist puffed hard on her pipe and eyed him suspiciously through the rank tobacco smoke.
“The place looked squalid and miserable,” he wrote, “and it did not seem as if much money would be forthcoming in such a barn of a place.”
But he learned that the criminal community had paid for the lavish wake after a collection in local pubs raised up to £4 — a huge sum.
Every penny was spent on beer and whiskey and the mourners left it to the parish to organise the funeral and the body was buried at the expense of the city’s ratepayers.
“Those at the wake supped five times the undertaker's fee,” he wrote.
With so much alcohol flowing at the wakes, and concerns over the behaviour of their parishioners, Catholic priests tried to assert their authority and institute a ban.
A writer who followed a clergyman walking the parish bounds for a magazine article called “Rounds with a Parish Priest” was told that some priests were making surprise inspections of mourners’ homes.
"I remember an Irish clergyman who was very zealous in his work,” he was told.
“He not only prevented the burial service being read over a body that had been waked, but adopted the plan of dropping in at the wake.”
Inside the house, the priest would take the names of everyone present and read them out from the altar on three successive Sundays, which had the effect of almost banning wakes from his parish.
“But a strange incident once occurred in connection with one of his visits,” he said.
“One of his congregation, a poor Irishwoman, died and her son or husband, I forget which, resolved to have a wake.
“The priest heard of his resolution, and sent him word that if a wake over the body were attempted, he would come and prevent it.”
On the night of the wake, the priest turned up at the house armed with a thick stick and forced his way through the door.
Inside he found six people. After writing down their names, he ordered them outside.
“You cannot have a wake in my parish,” the priest shouted at widower.
“I shall have the wake,” was the reply.
“You cannot have it here, for I shall stop and prevent it.”
“By God, I'll have it,” the man said, “and if I can't have it in your parish, I'll have it in another.”
The man then rolled up his wife’s body in a bedsheet, took her in his arms and carried her through the streets to the house of a friend some distance away.
“This house being in another parish, and beyond the jurisdiction of the priest, the wake was held,” the journalist wrote in his article.
There were reasons why the priests were against the wakes above and beyond the drinking, with reports of one body falling out of a coffin on to the floor after it was propped up against a wall.
Another journalist described an even more shocking incident: “A friend of mine, a priest, once came suddenly upon one of these gatherings and found the corpse lying in a bed with a lighted pipe stuck in its mouth and the drunken wakers enjoying the sight.”
He added: “Of course this was an extreme case for, as a rule, the Irish have a great veneration for the dead. It is generally the living who suffer from the amount of drink consumed.”
Such scenes were extremely rare and another journalist discovered what most wakes were really like when he visited the house of a woman named Mrs Dooley who had died.
As he sat down on a bench that had been borrowed from a local school, he was offered a fresh pipe and a large glass of whiskey from a jug that was being handed round.
Four lengths of wood had been tied to each corner of the bed and connected at the tops with cross-beams to turn it into a makeshift four-poster.
The posts had been decorated with pieces of black and white cloth and white linen had been draped from the beams.
“Under this canopy, upon a sheet-covered board, the corpse lay, a sheet thrown over it and the stiff feet straightened up beneath the covering,” he wrote.
Four candles were placed at each corner — three in candlesticks and the fourth in a pop bottle.
A wreath of flowers and a crucifix had been placed upon Mrs Dooley’s chest and around the room were flowers and green leaves in an assortment of jugs and jars.
“It was not much to say that Mrs Dooley's waking was as grand as the Duke of Wellington’s lying in state,” he said.
The whiskey jug was passed around and all of the wakers smoked on their pipes.
Suddenly one of the women began to sing a mournful song in Gaelic as the rest of the mourners sat in silence watching the body.
“Sure it does one’s heart good to hear the tune of the old country,” one of the men, an old Irishman, said.
Then all in the room knelt down and took out their Rosary beads and prayed for the repose of Mrs Dooley’s soul.
“One by one the company left, each shaking hands with the mourners and bidding them ‘not to let themselves down’,” the journalist wrote.
“When we came away, soon after 11pm, the dead and her sons and daughter were alone.”
The Manchester History Mooch
Here’s your weekly list of history-related things to do in Greater Manchester, under a new name. Who doesn’t like to go for a mooch around Manchester?
🤝 There are just a few days left to visit the When Marianne and Britannia Meet exhibition at Manchester Central Library, which tells the story of the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale between France and the UK. Free.
🎭 Also at Central Library, there’s another exhibition that tells the story of Manchester’s theatres showcasing items from the library’s unique archive, including playbills, programmes, posters and other memorabilia dating right back to the eighteenth century. Free.
📚 If Mary Barton and The Manchester Man are your thing, you can join researcher Michelle Ravenscroft to celebrate Lancashire Day on Wednesday 27 November with a talk exploring the literary stories of Manchester, organised by Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. £6
And this week I have been mostly watching…
📺 Famine and Shipwreck: The Coffin Ship Hannah. This documentary on Freevee (with an Amazon account) takes a novel approach to telling the story of the sinking of an Irish emigrant ship during the time of the Great Famine. Decedents of survivors of the Hannah disaster travel to Ireland to see how their ancestors lived and visit the sinking’s memorial site in Canada before a remarkable meeting with a relative of the ship captain who rescued their forebears.
Local History Matters
I hope you found this weekend’s letter interesting and that you’re all keeping warm in this cold weather.
I’ve been getting into my stride this week in my new role as freelance session leader of the Burnage Local History Group.
It’s a friendly group and we meet every other Monday at Burnage Library.
This week I did a talk about Angel Meadow and next time we’ll be looking at and drawing out stories from the bombing maps from the 1940 Manchester Christmas Blitz.
If you live locally, do come along for a free brew and a chat about local history. The library is a brilliant place and there’s free tea, coffee and biscuits.
I’ve also been back down in Angel Meadow this week recording a short interview with BBC Radio Manchester for a series they are running soon called Hidden Manchester.
I’ll post the link when it airs. It was freezing cold so you’ll probably hear my teeth chattering on the radio.
Keep warm and stay safe this weekend!
Another great read - thanks! Your ability and skill in finding just the right sources is humbling and something we can all aspire to.
And seriously, I laughed out loud at the priest outing folks at the funeral lol. Fabulous details, as always.
I never realised that wakes in the past were held before the funeral. We're used to them being after these days. I wonder why it changed and when?
Very interesting Dean, thanks.