IRELAND
Irish Times
Sun, Jun 8, 2014
Breda O’Brien
In the film Calvary, there is a scene where two airport workers are waiting to load a coffin onto an aircraft. They are having a chat and one of them is leaning his elbows on the coffin, as if it were any old piece of freight.
A young French woman, who is in the appalling situation of having to transport her husband home in a coffin after a car crash, witnesses this as she waits to board the aircraft along with Fr James Lavelle, the central character in Calvary (played brilliantly by Brendan Gleeson.)
Without wishing to give away the plot, the casual disrespect and the disregard for the grief of the bereaved shown by the workers triggers an important turning point in the film.
We Irish pride ourselves on doing death well, on having healthy rituals that help both to make sense of grief and to build a sense of community.
It seems that it all depends on who you are. Yet again, we see that if you are small and powerless, even the most basic respect of having a marked grave may be denied you.
We have witnessed this already in the long struggle of the survivors of the Bethany Home for recognition.
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