'A great honour' for Share as they keep tradition alive at funeral of Kenyon Jones Ginn

A native of the Black Mountains in Wales, Kenyon Jones Ginn entered a nursing home four years ago after developing dementia. He died last month at the age of 85

Boys and girls of Share walk alongside the hearse as the remains of Kenyon Jones Ginn, fondly known as Taffy, are taken from Joe Coughlan’s Funeral Home on Shandon St. Picture by Noel Sweeney

The lady sitting on her own in Coughlan’s Funeral Home on Shandon St, Cork City, didn’t want to give her name. 

She was there, she said, because she had heard about the Welsh chap who had died recently. She just wanted to pay her respects on her way into town to do some Christmas shopping before lunchtime. After that, it would be too busy.

The Welsh chap she referred to was Kenyon Jones Ginn, who had lived in the Share Mount St Joseph Housing Complex nearby from 2007 to 2021, as reported in the Irish Examiner. 

A native of the Black Mountains in Wales, he entered a nursing home four years ago after developing dementia. He died last month at the age of 85.

Known as Taffy, he lived in Ireland for many years — but he did not have any family here.

This is where the story could take a melancholy turn, in which someone’s passing comes to symbolise the heartless present — modernity’s grim, headlong rush — as opposed to the sympathetic past.

Instead, this is where the boys and girls of Share stepped in.

Students and volunteers from Share carry Taffy's coffin to the hearse. Picture: Noel Sweeney

This time of year is Share season, in that the yellow jackets of the schoolboy and schoolgirl collectors around Cork City are a familiar sight to Christmas shoppers. 

The charity was founded over half a century ago by students from Presentation Brothers College (PBC), Cork,  and has gone from strength to strength since. 

Share has been a powerful positive force on Leeside since its inception, and Monday's display was more proof of that — if such were needed. 

Kenyon Jones Ginn was a client of the Share housing complex in life, but the charity did not forget him in death.

Anyone going up or down Shandon St on Monday around 1pm probably saw plenty of the traditional markers of a funeral around Coughlan’s: The hearse waiting, and gardaí ordering traffic around it, a knot of people assembled outside the funeral home itself.

What set Monday apart, however, was the guard of honour made up of boys and girls from Share in their familiar yellow jackets. Those who shouldered the coffin out to the hearse were similarly identifiable.

It was good to see the respect for tradition in a traditional part of the city. 

Catherine O’Brien,who knew Taffy well, holds a framed photo of him outside Coughlan’s Funeral Home on Shandon St, Cork City. Picture: Noel Sweeney

Shandon St may not be as bustling now as it was in years past, when most of the visitors to town streaming down to the North Gate Bridge were walking rather than driving, but it still boasts considerable foot traffic.

Pedestrians who came against the coffin being borne to the hearse paused and crossed themselves, waiting in silence until the way was clear. 

Those in nearby shops came to stand at the doors to pay their respects as the coffin came out. A woman from the flower shop across from Coughlan’s brought out a rose for the coffin when it was laid in the hearse.

The respect on show was shared by the Share students who were present. 

Ryan Wylie, of PBC, spoke for them all when he said: “It’s a Share tradition that you must always treat people with respect, but that you also treat people with dignity in death.

“I think that it’s a great honour for us to be here, to be part of Taffy’s final wishes, because one of those final wishes was that the people in Share would come to his funeral, that some of us would carry the casket, and that after the cremation we would scatter his ashes at the Mount St Joseph complex, where he lived for so many years.

“It’s hard now we’re here at the funeral home. It’s sad, but it’s good to honour his wishes too.” 

Kenyon Jones Ginn, fondly known as Taffy, lived in the Share Mount St Joseph Housing Complex in Cork from 2007 to 2021.

The hearse pulled away to lead a small cortege on the journey down to the crematorium in Ringaskiddy, and the spell was broken. Shandon St instantly became as busy as you might expect of any city street 10 days before Christmas.

The headlines have often made for grim reading this year, but Monday's display of respect and humanity was restorative. 

It showed that people are remembered and not forgotten, and that the rituals and traditions to mark someone’s passing endure. 

Many years ago, playwright Arthur Miller described one of his characters as deserving dignity and recognition. Attention must be paid, wrote Miller.

Attention was paid in Cork on Monday.