FUNERALS ARE INCREDIBLY sad, but they can also be incredibly awkward – if you bump into a distant relative or old friend and can’t remember what their name is.
Now an Irish company, Morning Memorials, has come up with an answer to these embarrassing social situations: name tags.
These ‘name gems’ specify whether the wearer is a wife, husband, mother, father, son, daughter, brother or sister or other member of the family of the deceased.
The cost is less than €10 per family, said company owner Danny Morning.
He explained how they came up with the novel idea:
We have been supplying the funeral trade for about 12 years in various different countries and we always knew there was a problem there. Even in our own experience, at some funerals it was hard to tell the difference between the visitors and the family. People generally know one or two members of the family and don’t know the rest.
The company, which is based in Donegal, started to work on the name tags at the beginning of last year and filed a design registration in June 2010 – the tags are now patent pending. They are designed to be re-used three times.
“Otherwise it wouldn’t be a success if you could only use it once,” points out Danny.
Since the product launched a month ago, there’s been a great response to it, he said.
When asked if some people might feel embarrassed about wearing the tag, he said:
They will be more embarrassed if people walk past them and don’t recognise them or acknowledge them. Most funeral directors have told me over time that visitors to wakes and funerals actually sympathise with the funeral director because they’re wearing a dark suit.
The company, which employs 12 staff at its base in Donegal, also has two offices abroad – one in New Jersey and one in Milan.
Morning Memorials started off nine years ago creating plates for funeral directors to use on coffins and received European and American patents.
The name tags can only be ordered by funeral directors, who are invited to phone the company on 074 9129366.
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