There is something ineffably poignant about the coverage of the poor woman in the parish of Holy Redeemer, Slough, who has been attending funerals of complete strangers for the last 14 years and turning up for the buffet afterwards. Parishioners took a dim view, with one lady observing tartly that “there’s mass every morning; she doesn’t need to go to funerals”. The parish priest, Fr Noel Connolly, was forced to defend her: “She is a Catholic and she is convinced she needs to go to as many masses as possible.”

For any Irish person, the fuss is baffling, the habitual funeral-goer being a familiar and respectable figure.