Grief: the Irish wake & keening tradition - a podcast by Dr James Hoctor & Sheila Hoctor

In this episode we explore grief through the philosophy of Stoicism. We see that the Stoics particularly the thinking of Seneca can be considered a bit insensitive when it comes to the topic of grief. We then look at the waking tradition of old Ireland and specifically the practise of keening - a highly articulated custom of women’s oral poetry used to lament the deceased. Drawing on the philosophy of Joel Krueger we see that keening “scaffolded” the emotional consciousness of the community and thus brought all participants through the grieving process. Finally, Sheila shares her own experience of grief and claims that now more than ever we need to find innovative ways of facilitating the grieving process. 

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Music credits: Sláinte by Sláinte is licensed under a Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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