A very Irish phenomenon: Looking back on 20 years of RIP.ie

With 70 million page views per month, the website RIP.ie has become firmly established in the national psyche as it nears its 20th anniversary, says Jonathan deBurca Butler, who analyses the reasons behind its popularity

TIME OF SORROW: RIP.ie "is kind of unique to Ireland. Different countries have tried this because they’ve seen how successful it’s been as a platform, but it hasn’t worked as well."

When you open RIP.ie and see the carousel of names of the recently deceased, it’s the younger faces that grab your attention.

The 32-year-old man who “died suddenly and unexpectedly” and who leaves behind a pregnant wife and young son, the 24-year-old daughter, sister and friend who died “peacefully surrounded by family” and has asked for donations to cancer charities instead of flowers. They are the ones that hit you.

As I look through these smiling faces looking back at me, I find myself wanting to find out more. What happened to these people? Where were they from? What did they do in life? Who loved them?

I’m not so sure whether I’m driven by a desire to briefly share in their loved ones’ grief, an inherent voyeurism, or a need to acknowledge their lives before they’re replaced by tomorrow’s deaths, and, eventually, replaced by me.

Twenty years old this March, RIP.ie was the brainchild of Louth natives, Dympna Coleman and her brother Jay. According to the origin story of this uniquely Irish website, Dympna had been abroad for some time and hadn’t realised the father of a close friend had passed away. She immediately recognised a need, and RIP.ie was born.

Ten weeks after it went live, their local Dundalk newspaper, The Argus, reported that the “business… has had a huge response with at least 12,000 individual visitors to the site”.

Gus Nichols, director of Fanagan’s Funeral Directors in Dublin, was president of the Irish Association of Funeral Directors when Dympna and Jay first popped up on his radar.

“I remember them coming into us,” says Gus. “They wanted to sound us out on what we thought. I have to say there was a lot of scepticism at the beginning. I know they spent a lot of the early days getting hard copy death notices from newspapers and transcribing them onto the site.

"I’ve always had great admiration for them. They stuck at it and then it really took off. The next thing we knew, it was replacing death notices in papers.

Gus Nichols, director of Fanagan’s Funeral Directors in Dublin: 'More than 95% of deaths go up on RIP.ie'

“We analyse our funerals to find out what’s happening around them for our group of 12 branches and we see that more than 95% of deaths go up on RIP.ie. Death notices in papers are probably at around 30%. That’s probably one of the key reasons The Irish Times bought it.”

When RIP.ie was sold to The Irish Times almost two years ago for a reported €1m, it was receiving 60 million page views per month. Today, that is up to 70 million.

“There’s no doubt there’s an obsession there and it’s remarkable how many hits it gets every day,” says Nichols.

“It’s kind of unique to Ireland. Different countries have tried this because they’ve seen how successful it’s been as a platform, but it hasn’t worked as well. I think that’s because we’re a big village and funeral culture is very important here.

“If you look at the landing page, it’s always very interesting. The most viewed notices are listed on the right and the vast majority of those are outside Dublin. I don’t know exactly why that is but I’d guess the more rural the funeral, the bigger the deal it is.

“There are people who visit that site every day,” says Nichols. 

We’re able to see how many views a funeral gets and it’s never less than a thousand, even if only three people turn up to the funeral itself. So there’s a curiosity there.

Not only can visitors get the details of removals, services and funerals, but notices offer loved ones the chance to tell mourners what they can and should do in their contribution to the grieving process — suggested donations instead of flowers, whether attendance at the house is expected or politely discouraged, there are even suggestions as to what mourners should wear in some cases. 

People can also leave their condolences, often building up a unique bank of special memories that anyone can share in.

“Our core offering is to help families to provide accurate and timely information on funeral arrangements because we do things so quickly around funerals in Ireland,” says Richie Kelly, head of RIP.ie.

“Since the acquisition, we’ve tried to improve the user experience around that but we’ve also expanded into a grief support community.

“Three-and-a-half million people use the platform every month. Not all of them are dealing with grief as such but we all will at some stage; that’s just inevitable. So we’re creating a bank of content that we hope helps people go through that process.”

Ireland AM presenter Muireann O’Connell hosts a new podcast for RIP.ie, calledParting Words.Picture: Naomi Gaffey

With that in mind, the platform has just launched its own podcast. Hosted by Ireland AM presenter, Muireann O’Connell, Parting Words shares honest conversations about love, loss, grief, and the enduring bonds that live on after death.

On its release, the podcast went straight to No.2 on the Irish podcast charts, showing both RIP.ie’s remarkable reach and our apparent obsession with death and mourning.

“When you see the comments and the feedback on features like the podcast, you see that what we’re doing is actually helping people,” says Kelly.

“Obviously, our core is always going to be offering that timely information around funeral arrangements, but as we look to the future, we want to expand our support for people. So there’s a great sense of purpose to it. And I think all of the team feels that.”

20th anniversary

That sense of purpose is reflected in the plans that Kelly and his 15-strong team have to mark the 20th anniversary of the platform. 

Throughout the month, it is inviting people across the country to walk 20 kilometres to honour the memory of their loved ones and raise money for a charity of their choosing.

“We wanted to do it around remembrance,” says Kelly. 

“There have been more than 600,000 people listed on our site and we thought it would be a lovely way for families to remember their loved ones.”

In addition, everyone who registers for the walk will have a native woodland tree planted in their loved one’s honour in what will eventually become the RIP.ie Remembrance Forest in Ballinakelly Woods in Carlow with the help of the Native Woodland Trust.

€100 charge

While the Irish Times investment is already seeing a return in terms of the platform’s wider offering, the introduction of a €100 charge to funeral directors in January, 2024, did cause something of a stir.

“In advance of bringing the charge in, we did consult with funeral directors and those in the industry,” explains Kelly. “We did lots of research into charges in local radio, for example, and compared their reach to ours. 

"So it was a well-considered plan. And we really feel that if you compare it to other offerings out there, it’s good value.

Richie Kelly, Head of RIP.ie: 'Three and a half million people use the platform every month. Not all of them are dealing with grief as such but we all will at some stage; that’s just inevitable.'

“Look, it’s a fantastic service,” says Nichols. “It covers a lot of detail. Where the funeral is, the time, how to get there and the map link is brilliant; the number of calls we get around that has definitely gone down. 

"Even the fact that you can change things quickly. If someone, in their stress, gets a name wrong or they’ve left someone out, it can be changed straight away and it removes a lot of angst.

“Of all the things we do, and we do lots for families, the RIP.ie notice is the most valuable and we’ve had no complaints yet about the €100 charge.”