Funeral director welcomes hospitality award

IN a nation of 100,000 welcomes we are still saving the best until last.

Case in point is Newmarket-based funeral director Michael O’Reilly, who was crowned the most welcoming man in Cork at the 2006 Fáilte Ireland Welcome Awards yesterday.

For a man well-practiced in the delicate art of the sombre handshake, he had to dig a little deeper to claim this prize.

The awards’ ceremony in Knappogue Castle, Co Clare, was told that Michael earned the award for helping American Sean Burke to trace his relatives after the traveller met a dead-end in the local grave yard.

The parish priest pointed Mr Burke in Michael’s direction because the family’s funeral home has records going back to 1885.

Michael said: “I got a laugh out of. You might expect it if you ran a guest house or bed-and-breakfast but as an undertaker this is beyond my wildest dreams.

“People often come in looking for relatives who might be buried in Clonfert cemetery, sure what is half an hour with them.”

Michael was among 26 people applauded for giving their county’s best welcome throughout the 2006 holiday season.

He was joined by bed-and-breakfast owners, an Abbeyleix Garda, the manager of two McDonalds’ restaurants in Clare and a fireman who rescued a US marine.

Fire officer Brendan Henry came to the aid of the marine whose punctured tyre left him stuck on the side of the road in Tubbercurry with a backseat of contrary children.