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Dara O’Shea and Louise O’Brien of RHEA Family Funeral Care specialise in crafting, organising and delivering beautiful and meaningful funerals, memorials and celebration of life events in Cork city and surrounds.
From preparatory consultations, to detailed planning and comprehensive support across the days of a funeral to bespoke ceremonies by qualified Funeral Celebrant Louise, RHEA is here to help you say goodbye in a meaningful way that honours your loved one.
You will be met with compassion, confidentiality, and a service that will enable you and your loved ones to face this most difficult life milestone. We work in a complementary way to your funeral director to ensure you and your family are relieved of the stress usually associated with a funeral to offer you the time and space to grieve while we look after the tasks at hand.
As we celebrate life’s milestones, so too should we celebrate each person at the end of their life in a way that reflects their character, personality, spirit and unique individuality as well as your love for them. More than just a funeral, we will help you to honour the life being celebrated and begin to say goodbye in a meaningful, personalised way.
We understand the weight of grief and the myriad of jobs, tasks, calls and decisions to be attended to around a funeral. We understand how meaningful each aspect of a funeral becomes in the moment of grief and mourning – funeral flowers, symbols of life and gifts, funeral singers, musicians and music choices, reading and poems, receptions, wakes and hosting at home, who will carry the coffin and more. We spend time helping you explore meaningful and personalised choice and we source the best suppliers, providers and options with creativity and attention to detail to ensure that the funeral is meaningful and memorable with less stress.
RHEA Family Funeral Care is an independent funeral planning service, dedicated to helping people to have meaningful funerals that honour the life of the person who has passed while reducing the stress on bereaved loved ones.
As part of our complete funeral planning service, we are pleased to offer bespoke, personalised ceremonies by qualified civil funeral celebrant, Louise O’Brien.
We can craft and hold ceremonies outside of a church setting for example at the funeral home, grave side or crematorium. Many people seek civil celebrant-led ceremonies for the versatility, spirituality and comfort they offer. In today’s diverse society a civil funeral celebrant can be suitable in a variety of context; where the family don’t wish to have any religious elements, where they would like to have a blend of a faith and non-religious ceremony or where a family would like to have an additional ceremony in addition to a requiem mass.
Every funeral ceremony is unique and every element of a ceremony, including readings, eulogy, poems, music and more is carefully planned and selected to express the multitude of emotions those in grief wish to express with love stitched into every word.
With many years experience, Dara and Louise use a personal approach to identify your vision, with a complete planning and coordination service so that you can focus on being present without the stress of the ‘to-do’ lists or the worry about what comes next. Read more about us…
What our clients say…
“I and my siblings were grateful to have had Dara and Louise at our side as we sought to honour our dad, Ted’s, long and unique life. We found that their professional expertise, competence and attention to detail was matched fully by their compassion and patience – we were all extremely happy afterward, especially when we think of how much Dad would have enjoyed it.”
“When faced with the daunting task of organising a funeral that would truly honour our Dad, Dara and Louise stepped in as our guiding light. They researched the wonderful man that he was, to ensure we could create a ceremony that he would have loved. They researched the perfect venue, found an amazing singer and musician who played his favourite songs and they planned the flowers from his favourite colours. Their dedication to compassion was only matched by the seamless planning and execution, reducing stress on all of us. We will be forever grateful that we were able to spend time with friends and family, knowing that Dara and Louise had everything in hand.”
“RHEA helped our family to organise a memorial for our daughter and sister Arwen, who we lost at the start of the pandemic in 2020. Louise and Dara supported us every step of the way and had many suggestions in how we could make the memorial special and unique. They had a genuine interest in getting to know who Arwen was to ensure that her spirit embodied the event itself. RHEA showed sensitivity, compassion, professionalism, organisation and attention to detail. They were there on the day to guide us through the memorial meaning we could be truly present (and less stressed) knowing that the logistics were in their safe hands. We will be forever grateful to Dara and Louise for taking such good care of us and helping us create an incredibly special event that we will always treasure.”
“When my uncle passed suddenly, myself and my extended family were in shock. I was so glad to have Louise on hand with expertise, great empathy and time to prepare for the funeral mass. It meant I wasn’t nervous at all, was able to participate in the mass with clarity and confidence and be present in the moment to honour my uncle. What a fabulous service Rhea offers.”