Death Rituals and Death Technologies: Questioning the Old and the New

Death Rituals and Death Technologies: Questioning the Old and the New

Symposium at University College Cork, North Wing Council Room, 28-29 May 2026.

Death is the great unifying force for all life — human and non-human. Death shapes our experiences of life as it signals materially and culturally that our existence is finite. In response, human societies have developed complex death, disposal, and mourning rituals over millennia to cope with the temporal reality of death and the corpse it is represented by. However, we are living in a time of flux — environmental degradation, economic precarity, and migrating populations are all upending how we respond to and subsequently ritualise death and the dead body. So-called ‘new’ death technologies such as pyro- and hydro-cremation, body composting, eco burial, and cryopreservation are challenging traditional concepts of deathly rituals. In the traditional narrative of society’s unilineal development, the role of ritual and history is framed as being antithetical to these new technologies (and vice-versa). This symposium disrupts this notion. Its aim is to locate the emerging rituals that come with new death technologies, as well as consider the unique value that new death technologies can bring to old rituals.

Highlights of this international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral event include:

• Keynotes from Professor Ciara Breathnach (School of History, UCC) and Associate Professor Marietta Radomska (Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University);
• Papers given by presenters from Ireland, Australia, the US, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Nigera;
• And a panel of death care industry professionals that speaks to the past, present, and future of Ireland's funerary landscape.

A full programme is set out at the bottom of this page.

This event will be held in person. Please register for catering and accessibility purposes.

We would like to thank the National University of Ireland, the Future Humanities Institute, the Radical Humanities Laboratory, and the School of English and Digital Humanities for their generous support of this event. 

EVENT PROGRAMME

Thursday 28th May
10:00am-10:30am Welcome
10:30am-12:00pm KEYNOTE: Prof Ciara Breathnach (UCC), 'Ritual Disruption: Respectability, Death and Burial in Irish Institutions 1856-1969’
12:00pm-1:00pm Lunch
1:00pm-3:00pm INDUSTRY PANEL: Dr Brian Casey (Dublin Cemetery Trust), Helen Chandler (Kindly Earth), Siofra Hegarty (Telling the Bees Death Cafe), Colm Kieran (My Farewell Wishes), Dara O'Callaghan (Shannon Crematorium), Clíona Purcell (Irish Wake Museum)
3:00pm-3:30pm Tea/coffee
3:30pm-5:30pm PANEL: Dr Julia Empey and Dr Kate Falconer (UCC), 'Death Rituals and Death Technologies: A Critical Overview'; Dr Björn Nansen (University of Melbourne), 'Scatter Your Ashes Online and Rest in Nature®'; Shannon Mora (Trinity College Dublin), 'A Cultural Phenomenon: Exploring the Evolving Role of RIP.ie on Mourning Rituals in Ireland'

Friday 29th May
10:00am-11:30am KEYNOTE: A/Prof Marietta Radomska (Linköping University), 'Death Rituals, Anthropocene Necropolitics, and the Power of Storytelling' [online]
11:30am-12:30pm Lunch
12:30pm-2:30pm PANEL: Prof Staci M Zavattaro (University of Central Florida) [et al], 'Community Building in the Cemetery: Using Digital Tools to Create Civic Engagement'; Prof Babatunde M Omotosho (Federal University Oye-Ekiti), 'Reactivating the Dead: Domestic Burial and the Afterlives of Modernity in Nigeria'; Dr Sam Holleran (RMIT), 'The Dead as Infrastructure: Cemeteries, Remains, and Urban Land Claims'
2:30pm-3:00pm Tea/coffee
3:00pm-5:00pm PANEL: Dr Aisling Shalvey (UCC), 'Many Deaths of Gunther and Werner: The Question of Human Remains, Research as a Death Ritual, and Determining Cause of Death in the Wake of National Socialism'; Hanne Dielis (University of Antwerp), 'Rethinking Corpse Disposal in Europe: Legal Approaches to Emerging Alternative Methods of Corpse Disposal'; Dr Talya Deibel (Maastricht University) [et al], 'Completed Lives and Techno-Mediated Goodbyes: Algorithmic Decision-Making in End-of-Life Care'
5:00pm-5:30pm Close

Image credit: Bill Doyle and Muiris Mac Conghail, Island Funeral (Dublin, Veritas, 2000)