1 September 2024
By Elaine Murphy
elaine@TheCork.ie

Business News

Dara O’Shea, co-founder of RHEA, an innovative family funeral care business that provides a range of practical supports to people at the time of organising a funeral, will represent the Cork branch in the upcoming Network Ireland Businesswoman of the Year National Awards to be held on 27th September in Kilkenny.

Dara was named as the winner in the Emerging Businesswoman category of the prestigious Network Cork Businesswoman of the Year awards which took place earlier this year. She will now meet finalists from across the country in the National finals which recognise the cream of female entrepreneurship across eight categories.

Louise

Dara and Louise of RHEA. RHEA “is a premier full-service funeral planning company dedicated to honouring the memories of loved ones with compassion and creativity”.

The Cork awards were judged by a prestigious panel comprising Dr Niall O’Keeffe, Head of Enterprise at Cork City Council, Evelyn Moynihan, CEO of the Kilkenny Group and Audrey Houlihan, Branch Manager, Blackpool branch of Allied Irish Bank and Dara was singled out for the potential of her business to grow and for her understanding of how her strengths and skills can be utilised to transform a traditional sector.

Founded during the Covid-19 pandemic, Dara and her co-founder, Louise O’Brien, recognised that many families and individuals could greatly benefit from extra support at the time of a funeral when faced with a vast array of stressful decisions, pressing deadlines and difficult conversations in the very short time around a funeral. They established RHEA to offer help to grief-stricken people when they need it most. “Our goal is to make the funeral experience more meaningful and less stressful for our clients” says Dara.

“When a family has lost someone they love, they are faced with a multitude of big decisions to make in a short space of time. The funeral director will help with many elements but beyond that, people are faced with an overwhelming number of tasks and decisions ranging from where to have a reception to co-ordinating family members for the role they will play in events and everything in between.”

“No one deserves to spend 3 or 4 days running through to-do lists of errands, making phone calls, cleaning their family home, ordering catering, flowers, shopping for outfits and so much more. What they do deserve is to look after each other, spending quality time remembering their loved one and prioritising the decisions that will make the funeral experience memorable and meaningful. We step in to look after as many of those logistical elements as possible and help people in the emotional process of crafting the right ceremony or mass for them. Our work ranges from very practical co-ordination to emotional support with creativity and compassion.”

“When I found myself in the same situation, I learned very quickly just how intensely busy those few days around a funeral are” Dara goes on to say, “So much time was spent in the car and on the phone, doing jobs, making plans, rushing around… it all felt wrong.”

Dara and Louise combine lengthy, highly-profile careers in event management with compassionate support to offer this unique service. “Our event management expertise means that we are highly experienced at arriving at a situation and being quickly able to establish stability. We identify the priorities for the person or family, create a timeline in our minds about what needs to be done and when. This immediately alleviates the stress of the busy, upset minds of the people who have just lost someone. We take on the planning, reassuring them that we have them covered – they don’t need to become an event manager when they’ve just lost someone – we are there for that. Our clients are deeply grateful to us afterwards and this tells us that we’ve provided a valuable service for them”.

RHEA have seen how funerals are changing in Ireland and as preferences change, they are ideally placed to help people have the most suitable funeral for them, that honours their loved one. Louise, who is also a qualified civil funeral celebrant, sees a growing need for more diverse and personalised services. At the core of RHEA’s vision is a wish for people to have meaningful experiences, without regret.

“We are in a time of change in funerals” says Louise. “Like all of life’s milestones, people deservedly want to mark the end of a life with a ceremony and experience that is true to the person that has died, reflects them, honours their values and beliefs and offers something meaningful for their loved ones left behind, that will comfort them on the dark days of grief.”

There are so many more options and choices available to people than they may realise and thinking and talking about these in advance is the key to making personalised choices possible when the time comes.

“We know of many ways that a funeral experience can be personalised. We have helped families to make the right choices for them that made their funeral mass extra special. We have also helped families to create beautiful, emotionally uplifting celebration of life ceremonies without religious elements. What they all have in common is an authentic, personalised experience that truly honours their beloved person, we could not wish for more for anyone.”