'There’s lots of tradition, but it is a male dominated industry' – meet Ireland's only firm of all-female embalmers

After the loss of her beloved sister Aderinne in 2009, Marion Power trained as an embalmer and now manages an all-female team at Fanagans Funeral Directors in Dublin

Female embalmer tells how the passing of her sister and doing her post death make up, inspired her to take up the end of life trade

Marion Power

‘My younger sister Aderinne and I were always very close. We weren’t just sisters, we were best friends. We did everything together — we took holidays together and we worked together. We both trained as barbers and we set up and ran our own barber shop called Power Cuts — a nod to our surname; Power. Unfortunately, Aderinne became ill in 2009, and was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer. She passed away at the age of 28 on New Year’s Eve. It was devastating for our family. My poor mum and dad were heartbroken. We also lost my brother when he was 36 in a car accident so it was very hard on them.

When Aderinne was dying, one of her wishes was that a woman would embalm her. She used to say to me: “You should have trained to be an embalmer — then I wouldn’t have all those men looking at me.”