New service allowing people to make their own funeral arrangements coming to Tipp

Photo © Pat Flynn

My Farewell Wishes is an Irish owned funeral planning business currently working with over 40 of the country’s top funeral directors across 58 locations.

It was founded by Cavan based undertaker Colm Kieran and tech entrepreneur Dean Gammell in response to a growing demand from customers for pre-planning services.

My Farewell Wishes involves a “Record of Wishes” form, allowing people to create the send-off of their choosing, and reducing the decisions their family have to make after their passing.

With one Tipperary undertaker already on-board and a number of others in the process of signing up, Colm told Tipp FM what funeral directors can expect.

“There are actively people in your community that want this service. We have already one in Tipperary and we are in the process of signing up a couple more. But, what people do is they comes in to the funeral director’s office, sit down with the funeral director use our forms they are there to bring home, they can be filled out in consultation with your funeral director, or they can be done online either. That is one thing that we are focusing on next is supporting the local funeral directors who use our service to have an online planner behind their website.”

Colm outlined how it works for the costumer, saying people are not afraid to discuss death and often want to make sure they have their voice included in the decision.

“We would often be making funeral arrangements and there are family members there presents that are making arrangements and the one voice that is missing from the conversation is the person themselves. So, what we want to do is empower the people to learn what their options are first once they have their options decided on you get them written down, and the third part of that then is to share it. So, we provide the service where people can get their wishes written onto a certificate of wishes and that is sent out to their chosen funeral director, it’s also sent a copy to themselves and a copy sent to the person they have to represent them after they pass away.”