WHEN IT WAS confirmed 12 months ago that RIP.ie would start charging for death notices placed on its website, it kickstarted a flurry of activity in an industry that was for a long time a near monopoly.

Whether it was to post funeral plans after a bereavement, find out scheduling details or just to check latest listings on who has died in your area, the website has been a central hub for a key part of our lives for more than two decades.

Founded by brother and sister Jay Coleman and Dympna Coleman, RIP.ie was sold it to the Irish Times in May 2024 after its growing importance had seen it receive up to a quarter of a million visitors on a daily basis in the years prior.

At the time it revealed its charging plans, RIP stressed that families will never be charged for submitting a death notice.

The Journal took a look at some of those rivals and pretenders, who started out with high ambitions – only to find that it’s no easy thing taking on the king.

The ones that bowed out early

One contender, Death Notices, attracted thousands of follows in its first 24 hours on Facebook, a sign of the interest in an alternative in the immediate aftermath of RIP’s decision becoming public.

However, the platform also never took off. Its website and Facebook page remain as a monument to its ambition.

Examples using fake names from the short-lived Death Notices.

Another entry to the market was Reposing, which was already in operation in Estonia under the name Puhkarahus (Rest in Peace).

While it had been tested already as a result, it also did not survive.

One that has stayed the course is Condolences. It was started by Danny Morning, who runs a funeral supplies business in Donegal.

He explained previously that he was driven by a desire to see costs remain low in the business. While fees are not actually that unusual for death notices – radio stations and newspapers have both long charged – RIP’s decision still came as a shock to some.

Morning’s site has stayed the course, but with far fewer undertakers than RIP.

Morning had an advantage as he works in the funeral supplies business so that also probably explains it given he had prior business connections.

When you search the site, it becomes clear that some undertakers who did use it early last year stopped doing so by the mid-way point.

Morning – who has worked in the funeral business for more than 30 years – had managed to sign up to “160-170 funeral directors” signed up so far for Condolence.ie.

However, country by country entries on the site indicate some of these pulled back after several months and the site seems to have consolidated to the north-west of the country.

There are an estimated 800 funeral directors operating across Ireland, and with so many also plying the trade as a standalone service, it would make it difficult for any new entrant to sign them all up.

It’s unclear what the future holds for Condolences. When The Journal phoned up this month, Morning declined to talk about any future plans for the site.

Costs of being a contender

Costs involved with running a site were flagged by a number of the site operators we spoke to.

At the time, Death Notices told us that it was aiming to “keep the price as close to zero as possible” for undertakers, partly out of a fear that any increased charges may be passed on to grieving families.

Hosting a website alone would cost €200 per month.

One attempt to counteract this came from another site called Funeral Notices, started by a Galway based entrepreneur.

He had told The Journal at the time that the startup was hoping on “leveraging AI to automate processes, such as performing sentiment analysis on condolences”.

This would have helped ensure “inappropriate content” would be filtered without the need for extensive manual review by the owner, helping to keep operational costs low in the process.

Others had cheekier ways of capitalising on RIP’s sudden move to charge.

On the day RIP’s owner made the announcement to start charging, one site with the very similar name of Riip emailed newsroom inboxes promising a free alternative.

Like several of the others mentioned here, it’s also pushing up daisies.