Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, I hope you've been enjoying your Clare Byrne Show podcast this week. If you like what you've heard there, be sure to check out my weekly podcast series, Never Have I Ever. In episode three, I met an extraordinary woman whose life journey has taken her from nurse to flight attendant with a detour into pharma sales before becoming a wedding and funeral celebrant. Her name is Karen Dempsey.
Take a listen.
You are known as the bald priestess. When people are saying, I don't remember her name, they can say, yeah, she's the bald one and you find me. I don't want her to become a capitalist transactional piece where you pay somebody money and they say some fancy words and off they go.
One wedding trend that you would happily just ban forever? Donut walls.
Chapter 2: What is the journey of Karen Dempsey, the Bald Priestess?
It would be really important to do it as Claire, who you were as a child, rather than Claire Byrne, the broadcaster.
Never have I ever. Never have I ever. Never have I ever. Never have I ever. Never. Wedding season is in full swing again. Every second weekend, someone's off to a hotel in Clare or they're standing in the freezing cold in Wicklow. Afraid to say that they're freezing cold because it really is worth it for the photographs. It's always worth it for the photographs.
If you're Irish, chances are you've probably spent a fair chunk of your life both at weddings and at funerals. But here's the thing I've been thinking about. Like, despite all the ceremonies I have been at, nobody has ever asked me to officiate at one of them. You know, like, in an unofficial capacity? Like, none of my friends have ever gone, surely Clare would be good at that.
I'm not taking it personally, but almost. I got married myself in the Dublin Registry office 10 years ago, exactly this year. And after all of these years of attending weddings and funerals and christenings and so on, never have I ever stood at the front and led one. But I am joined by somebody who has done that because I'm joined by Karen Dempsey. Karen, you're very welcome. Hi Clare.
So when you say to people that you are a celebrant, what do you think that they think? What do they say to you about that job?
I think immediately people go into how they would feel about that job. So they either say something like, I'd love to do that. That sounds brilliant. I've always thought about doing it. Or I could never do that. I could never stand in front of people and speak publicly. People are rarely kind of mediocre about it.
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Chapter 3: What trends in weddings does Karen Dempsey want to ban?
There's some kind of interest somewhere. They have strong feelings about it. Yeah, they do tend to, yeah. To me, the ceremony sets the tone for the day. And that's why I think it's so meaningful as well to kind of create that feeling of community and connection in the ceremony. Because then people will carry that forward into the celebrations afterwards and onwards into the life of that couple.
So then when it came to, let's say, your first wedding, did you have that moment where you thought, right, I am leading the charge? This is me now. This day depends on very much what I do.
So my first wedding ceremony was two people who I didn't know at the time. I went on to become dear friends of mine, Renee and Audrey. On the day of their wedding ceremony, I remember that morning, they messaged and said, oh, Karen, we don't have ribbons for such and such. Could you pick up something? I was like... This is not part of the job. Yeah, I was like, I'm already on my last minute.
But I laughed and I just stopped on the way down, got the ribbons. And that's very much a part of it as well. I'm really, really strong with couples in saying, nothing can go wrong. And whatever happens is part of the story. I mean, whether we have ribbons or not is actually irrelevant.
Karen Dempsey isn't just somebody who conducts weddings. Before becoming a celebrant, she worked as a nurse, a psychotherapist, a flight attendant and in pharmaceutical sales. She grew up in a family marked by sudden loss, trained in interfaith ministry and founded Entheos, an organisation that supports people who feel somewhere in between faith and no faith.
These days, she spends her time helping people through some of life's biggest moments, weddings, funerals and even deathbed ceremonies, which is why she's the perfect person to talk to here on Never Have I Ever. Over the years, as part of my job as a journalist and a broadcaster, I've spoken to many people on some of the darkest days of their lives. But Karen's job isn't to tell those stories.
It's to stand in the middle of them. to help families through moments most of us would struggle to imagine. And when I think about the funerals, the deathbed weddings, the ceremonies for babies and children that's the moment I wonder whether I could ever do what she does. What we expect and what we want from ceremonies, and let's focus on weddings for a moment, has changed a lot.
Like, do you see that, say, in the last 10 years or so? Yes.
That first wedding ceremony was in 2016 that I held. We're becoming a lot more comfortable with being invited to a wedding that's not in a church, where people usually would have expected to be going to a church of some faith path in Ireland, generally Catholic. It's actually becoming unusual to go to a church, really, in my friends and colleagues.
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Chapter 4: How does Karen create meaningful wedding ceremonies?
Oh, wow. This is just perfect for them.
I'm surprised to see you say that because you've described yourself as the most unromantic celebrant. And when I saw that, I thought, is that not illegal in this profession to be unromantic at weddings?
Yeah, to me, I'm really passionate about that because I think we are risking over-romanticising ceremonies and weddings. Weddings in particular, because the one thing that I think with a wedding is... Yes, the ceremony is this beautiful day that has lots of planning into it. But the marriage is something that the couple are stepping into wholeheartedly.
They know that they don't know what's ahead. But what they do know is that regardless of what's to come, this is the person they want by their side, come what may. And to me, that is deeply profound. And it can get lost in the over-romanticising sometimes of, there's lovely stories about how couples met and how they got engaged. But all of that in the grand scheme of things boils down to
They met each other somehow, crossed paths, decided this person is interesting enough to move on to meet them the next time, the next time. And the series of all those yeses lead them to a space where they say, we are going to commit to one another. I don't believe in the till death do us part unless the couple use that language themselves.
Because I really think that the power of a marriage is in the choice. The choice with which the couple choose one another and the choice with which every day they decide, yes, I am in this marriage because I want to be.
So you don't need to pour sugar over that is what you're saying. Absolutely not. You take it as it is on that day rather than sort of trying to project a love story onto that couple.
Yes.
Yes. And the love story is a big thing that is coming out in a lot of wedding ceremonies. A lot of them do incorporate a love story. But I don't necessarily incorporate the love story because I don't go seeking it. I use what the couple tell me. And to me, the power of a marriage ceremony is the ancientness of it.
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Chapter 5: What is the difference between weddings and funerals in celebrancy?
And I think a lot of what I love about it is I love people. So I love to feel and read what is going on in the room. Because the pattern that will follow is when you go in first and everybody's arriving, it's really jingle jangle. And very often you'll have one spouse in the room while the other is off getting ready and they will have everybody coming up and saying, oh, are they going to show up?
Are you nervous? And I really feel for them because I think all that's doing is actually escalating any nerves that are there. Or else they're trying to be super cool and unfazed. And I'll often say to that person, do you want to just take a breather and step outside or, you know, do what you need to do to keep yourself nice and level.
Then you have the part where everybody's taking their seats and people are seeing one another. And again, it's all that fizziness. The usual format is that one party is in and then the other party walks up the aisle or is escorted. But couples can do it however they like.
So when we get to that point, I will step outside and greet whoever is coming in as well, because very often they too are full of all the preparations and this is about to happen and that feeling of overwhelm. So to me, it's very much about taking a deep breath, feel your feet. You're here. Nothing can go wrong. We're going to do this.
And I say to both of them as well, you don't have to remember anything. I'll guide you the whole way through. So you just breathe, be present with one another and enjoy.
You are excited, but you're calm.
calm is a superpower well it has to be your superpower I take it from what you're saying because everybody else is you know 10 feet off the ground with nerves and excitement and all of the rest so you have to be calm absolutely and even if something has happened to throw me I have to be calm and there's no point in having a celebrant who's full of the oh stage management and direct that and all that
you can do all that but you have to be calm and you have to be ready to go when it's time to go you have to be ready to just begin and to roll with what's happening and I mean I've had ceremonies where it's outdoor and I mean I remember one couple from Arizona the hotel and I all tried to tell them Irish weather is changeable they didn't get it we were standing outside a castle and there was a beautiful wide horizon and I could see the clouds coming literally and it's on my social media actually because the clouds came and there was an absolute downpour
And I just had to make a decision there and then. I mean, the couple really wanted to go for it and they knew it might rain. All I could do was really condense down my words because there's no point breaking the ceremony right in the middle. So we got to the exchange of vows, joining of hands, exchange of vows and rings.
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Chapter 6: How does Karen handle emotional moments during ceremonies?
And that's it. Do you think we're getting better at talking about death in Ireland? There are layers to that. Yes, in some ways we're getting much better about talking about death in Ireland. We risk losing some of the organicness of how we approach death, but I think that's still there once we just are conscious of maintaining it.
I one time was holding a funeral and the curtains closed and there was the most enormous spider on the curtains behind me. And I named it as the curtains closed. Thankfully, I'm not afraid of spiders. And afterwards, one of the grandchildren said to me that their granny adored spiders, but thought it was the funniest thing to put fake spiders around and scare people. Ah, brilliant.
Yeah, you get these gorgeous, meaningful things that come out. Part of the show.
Yeah, yeah. Do you think people are more honest at funerals or at weddings?
probably funerals it depends I think sometimes we can put too much emphasis on the happiness this is all good and happy in a wedding and I think it's really important to hold that weddings often come with grief as well particularly when somebody has died whether it's been recent or very old that that grief is there and people can sometimes be afraid in case it's going to come out and overwhelm the ceremony and I will always say
it won't overwhelm anything. We need a space for it. If there's a space for that grief, that will allow you to process it in real time and then also be present for the celebratory parts too. To acknowledge it is important, isn't it? To acknowledge it, yeah, yeah. Pushing it down never really helps.
This is Never Have I Ever and celebrant Karen Dempsey from Entheos Ireland is with me this week. Now, Karen, I have rapid fire questions for you. I'm looking forward to this bit. So we're going to do some myth busting. You ready? Yep. These kinds of ceremonies that you do are just for hippies. True or false?
False.
Have you ever looked at a couple and thought, this is a bad idea? Once or twice. Have you been right? No, I was wrong, actually. That's good to know. Is there one wedding trend that you would happily just ban forever? Donut walls in the summertime. Because they attract things? Because they attract wasps. That's a very sensible reason.
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Chapter 7: What challenges does Karen face in her celebrant work?
And sometimes a death would come before birth. Maternity hospitals are really complex places because you have birth and death happening. Thankfully, fewer deaths. And I don't want to alarm anybody that's ever listening. But it's a fact of life and we all know it in various ways. So I was speaking to people about their beliefs and around life and death. And particularly in the Rotunda.
It tended to be a younger demographic because it was women of childbearing age. And there was one particular woman I spoke to at the wee hours of the morning, 3 or 4 a.m. She was miscarrying and she was trying to rationalize how she was understanding this. And she said, Karen, I didn't think I believed in God. but I don't know where my baby is. What do you believe?
And when she said to me, what do you believe? I thought, I really empathized with what she said because I was kind of similar. I was like, I believe in something more, but I'm not quite sure what. So that sent me on a path. At that point, I was already almost finished a master's in psychotherapy. And it was psychosynthesis psychotherapy, which is a spiritual psychotherapy.
But I went from there onwards to do a two-year training in London with the One Spirit Interfaith Foundation. seeking answers to my questions. And I came out the other side of that and went, I still have questions. I still don't actually have the answer. But I was much more comfortable with my not knowing at that point.
When I set up Entheos, it was particularly around the Irish context because that was a training in the UK, which is about various faith paths. And I realized that for me and for my contemporaries, it's not so much about the faith paths. It's about when you step outside of a faith path, And still hold some of that core belief and tradition in your bones.
But you don't really have anywhere to put it. And I felt like in Ireland we were at risk of really overly polarizing that. From all these faith paths to atheism, humanism, where there's no belief in something more. And there was this really beautiful middle ground that nothing was really happening in. Some things were happening, but I saw ways from my previous work.
I saw ways of making sure that we kept community at the heart of ceremony and ceremony at the heart of community. Because I didn't want to just set up an organization that holds ceremonies. I wanted it to be in service to the wider community.
So you're essentially, you're allowing for the possibility of God. Absolutely. Absolutely. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to Catholic Ireland and everything that went with our faith, which was community, ceremony.
That's the beauty of it. All of that. Community, tradition, the generational aspects, the like of the rosary. I would very often hold ceremonies now where we would incorporate a rosary. And it may be a person who has for a long time been away from the traditional faith path, hasn't attended mass within the institutional church, but they very much maintain those things.
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Chapter 8: How does Karen's background influence her approach to ceremonies?
Just when you mentioned the word priest, you are known as the bald priest, Jess, aren't you? How do you feel about that?
Yeah, it's a funny one, actually, because it's of old. I didn't really overthink it. Yeah, perfect. I mean, to me, I'm hopefully one of the most recognisable celebrants doing the rounds. So if people are saying, I don't remember her name, they can say, yeah, she's the bald one and you find me.
But the word priestess is a funny one because I don't really like the word priest because it implies hierarchy or separation. So I probably wouldn't choose it again, but it's there and it's established. It's become a thing. Yeah. And it's also a kind of reclamation as well because it has the S on the end.
Can I talk to you about the alopecia for a moment? Because does that change how you feel you present yourself to the world when you're standing at the top of that room? Has it changed you in any way?
Yeah, I think it definitely has changed me in ways that I probably won't ever really fully know. I think before I had alopecia, I had full head of lovely, shiny, dark hair. And I used to be an Aer Lingus cabin crew. So, you know, we were our hair was the updos were all a big fancy thing. And I used to love a good updo. But I had all the privileges that came with that, you know, of alopecia.
At the time, I mean, I was in my 20s when I got alopecia, so I had youth. I was standardly good looking, I suppose. I said that with a typical Irish, like, oh, I can't really say that about myself. Young, beautiful, gorgeous, long, dark hair. I had all that, all the trappings of it, yeah. And then when your hair falls out, it is incredibly hard to explain how profound the change is.
Because when I passed a mirror then and looked at myself, I just didn't recognize myself. And I had freckles. I've always had freckles. My skin was so white from my scalp back. And it's a really, really deeply profound adjustment when all your hair falls out. So I had bought a wig and I remember it was so expensive. It was like 795 euros at the time, which was insane money.
And I put it on a credit card. And I bought it because I felt like I should. And I felt like I should have a wig and I should. I'd say I wore it about twice. Did you not bother after that? I just felt like I was in disguise.
But now, I mean, do people talk to you about it? Is it one of the things that people who meet you first will say or do they not say it?
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