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Grave new world

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Grave Angels is a Dublin and Wicklow-based company that will tend the graves of your loved ones, much in the way that landscapers will keep a garden. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re living on the far side of the world from the family plot. You can view the company’s work on your ancestral plot on the Grave Angels Web site.
Grave Angels has been up and running as a full-time business since last October. It is owned by Trish Hickey, a mother of six from Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, and Brian Little, a Kilkenny native and father of two now living in Dublin.
The idea of taking on the task that people have no time for, or find too emotionally draining, came to Hickey in circumstances she did not welcome.
Her sister’s infant child died and her sister could not emotionally handle the idea of looking after the grave, at least in the short term. So Hickey offered to undertake the job.
“Many people like to visit graves of loved ones and just leave flowers, pray or spend a while in quiet contemplation,” Little said. “They don’t necessarily want to deal with a grave that has been overgrown with weeds.”
And the one thing about Ireland and its mild, wet climate is that the weeds can grow virtually 12 months a year.
The fact that relatives can avoid the labor and just contemplate when visiting family plots would appear to be a factor strong enough to propel the company’s business well into the future. Certainly, some of the testimonials on the Grave Angels Web site bear out this prognosis.
“Thank you for the wonderful job you did on my husband’s grave. Knowing that his grave is being tended and maintained like this means so much to me,” said one client.
Said another: “All of the family are so pleased with the work you’ve done to our parents grave. Knowing that every time we visit the cemetery the grave looks so well is a load off our minds.”
And there’s this from another client: “The fact that we do not have to go to the cemetery with our tools and work on the grave any more is such a relief. Thank you for all your help.”
“People say to us that they just want to go an pray, not to do the work. And the last thing they want to see is an overgrown plot, or a pile of rubble,” Little said.
Most of the company’s work is currently concentrated in the Dublin area, but Grave Angels is building up a network of landscapers around Ireland who can easily travel to even remote rural cemeteries.
“We have about 70 clients at the moment and the number growing each month. Word of mouth has been a very important part of the growth of the company,” Little said.
“We start work in the morning and often work late into the afternoon. We take the view that what we do is sacred and intimate. I can well understand why some people don’t go to visit graves.”
Little and Hickey have discovered that even if people are not keen on doing the work on family plots themselves, they can be very specific in their instructions to the company once a contract for the work has been reached.
A one off cleanup costs

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