There was an article in the paper a couple of months ago about undertakers. Specifically, it mentioned that in past times undertakers had been asked to bury amputated limbs. This struck me as unlikely but my cousin is an undertaker in a small country town and I asked him and he confirmed that, yes, in the past he had buried amputated limbs. He says that the custom is no more but he currently has a customer (his, rather surprising, word) who lost an arm in an accident and is looking for a 10% discount on funeral costs when he dies. You have to admire the forward planning.
I have, however, saved the best until last. A local publican from Cavan (this is important as Cavan is notoriously the meanest county in Ireland – in an Irish context “mean” is, um, careful with money) who had moved to my cousin’s home town told him that when her father’s leg was amputated, they took it home and fed it to the family dog. My cousin was shocked but said that the publican and her family saw nothing wrong with it. Can this be true?
More funeral and amputation news as we get it.
