Beyond the silence…
This forty-minute documentary focuses on how we view death.
It examines the importance of talking about and preparing for death. The need to move away from treating death purely as a medical event, while encouraging us to see death as a natural part of life and not a failure of medicine, is its central theme.
The Irish Wake will also be explored, not only for its rich tapestry of cultural rituals but also for the importance such rituals bring to the dying process, the mourners and the wider community.
Contributors to the program:
David Shannon
David Shannon is a senior chartered counselling psychologist and mindfulness practitioner (teacher/trainer/supervisor), with a special interest and experience in palliative care and psycho-oncology. David Shannon currently works full-time as a senior psychologist in radiation-oncology in Dublin, Ireland. David has pursued an interest in both the practice of mindfulness and its application at end-of-life for over twenty years.
Kevin Toolis
Kevin Toolis is a writer and filmmaker. As a filmmaker, Toolis has won a BAFTA for Best Single Drama and was nominated for an Emmy for his documentaries on the Middle East. My Father's Wake How the Irish teach us to live, love and DIE is not only a rich, raw and exquisite memoir of his father’s wake, but a reminder to the reader, that the coming together as a community and the ancient rituals that we bestow on death, help us to deal with our own grief and mortality; and who knows, it may even prompt us to live better too.
Seamus O’ Mahony
Seamus O’Mahony is a doctor and prize-winning author. He worked for many years in the NHS, returning to his native city of Cork in 2001, where he was a gastroenterologist and clinical professor until February 2020. His first of four books, The Way We Die Now, won the British Medical Association’s Council Chair’s Choice award in 2017. He is a member of the Lancet commission on ‘The Value of Death’ and is an affiliate of the End of Life Studies Group at the University of Glasgow.
This documentary is brought to you by a team of five students, currently studying Digital Journalism, in association with Kerry College and Radio Kerry.
Kieran McAuliffe: Administration / Sound / Logger / Editor
Shauna O’ Connor: Narrator / Logger
Colin O’ Malley: Vox Pop Legend / Multitrack Editor
Susan Shannon: Researcher / Securer and Interviewer of Contributors
Mikey Whelan: Vox Pop King / Logger
