Wake house to month's mind.
One album the whole family keeps.
An Irish funeral is three or four days long and the family is on its feet for all of it: the wake at the house or the funeral home with the queue of handshakes and "sorry for your trouble," the rosary, the tea and sandwiches, the removal to the church, the funeral Mass, the burial, the afters, and a month later the month's mind Mass. Photos are taken quietly through all of it and never gathered, and the relatives in Boston, London or Sydney see none of them. One code, given out at the wake house, changes that.
The moments guests actually photograph at Irish wakes
Why Irish wakes work better on Picsui
Written for the person hosting this one, and checked against what the product actually does.
For the ones who could not get home in time
Many parishes stream the funeral Mass on the parish webcam, and that is the part relatives abroad usually see. Live Pass covers the rest on a private link: the decade of the rosary at the wake house, the graveside, the songs at the afters. A cousin in Sydney watches on a phone at four in the morning.
The songs and the stories, recorded
Someone always sings at the afters, and someone always tells the story about the time he drove the tractor into the ditch. Guests record a video message of up to 30 seconds from the upload page, or film the song on their phone and upload it. Kept with the photos, played again at the month's mind.
Four days under one code
Set up the wake, the removal, the funeral and the month's mind as sub-events of the one gallery. Photos stay grouped by day, the family shares one link, and the code printed on the memorial card at the wake house still works a month later in the church porch.
No app. No account. One scan.
Guests point their camera at a QR code and are uploading in seconds. Nobody installs anything, nobody creates a login, and the grandparents can do it as easily as the teenagers.
Broadcast it to the people who couldn't come
Live Pass is a standalone $39 one-time add-on: stream up to 90 minutes to 100 viewers on a private link, with audio. Family abroad watch on any phone, no app required.
Voice messages
Guests record up to 60 seconds of audio right from the upload page — a blessing, a toast, a story — saved next to the photos in the same gallery.
Video messages, recorded on the spot
A 30-second video toast recorded in the browser, no editing, no re-uploading. The guest who would never write in a book will happily talk to a phone.
Several days, one gallery
Multi-day celebrations get sub-events under one code, so the rehearsal, the ceremony and the brunch stay organised but reachable from a single link.
Private by default, never indexed
The gallery is only reachable by the link or code you share. Guest pages are blocked from search engines and named AI crawlers, and you can close the gallery whenever you choose.
How it works
Set up in a minute. Collect for the whole event.
Create the event the day the arrangements are made and add the wake, the removal, the funeral and the month's mind as sub-events.
Print the code on a small card beside the book of condolence at the wake house, and give it to the undertaker to include with the memorial cards.
Guests upload photos and record stories and songs through the days, and relatives abroad watch what the parish webcam does not show.
After the month's mind, download the full album and send the link to every branch of the family.
Try uploading as a guest.
Scan this with your phone the way a guest at your event would. Choose a sample photo and upload it from your browser, then open the demo gallery to see it land.
- Scan the code with your phone camera — it opens straight in the browser.
- Upload a sample photo. Look for the upload confirmation so you know it reached the host.
Use a sample you are comfortable sharing with Picsui. Please keep personal or sensitive photos out of the demo.
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This is the same kind of code your guests scan at your event.
Getting the most from Irish wakes
Give the code out at the wake house first, because that is where the whole community passes through. A small card beside the book of condolence, and one on the mantelpiece next to the old photographs that always get put out, is enough. People who come to sympathize will not photograph the room, and should not be asked to, but they will photograph the old prints on the mantelpiece and the photo boards, and they will upload the photo they have of him from a wedding or a match in 1994 when they get home that night. Ask one of the family to say so in the kitchen. The uploads from the wake are almost always old photos, and they are the ones the family did not have.
Most parishes now stream the funeral Mass on the parish webcam, so check the parish website before paying for anything, and send that link to relatives abroad. Use Live Pass for what the webcam cannot show: the rosary at the wake house, the removal to the church, the graveside, and the afters in the hotel or the pub, where the songs happen. Agree a rough time with the family abroad, allowing for the eight or eleven hours' difference, and have one person with a steady hand and a charged phone do the streaming. Ask the priest before streaming anything in the church, and ask the singer before recording. Nearly everyone says yes.
The month's mind is the quieter gathering, and often the better one for photos. The shock has passed, the family that flew home has gone back, and the people at the Mass and the cup of tea afterward are the ones who will still be there next year. Bring the code back out, put it on the same card in the porch, and play the gallery from the wake and the funeral on a phone or laptop at the table afterward. Add the month's mind photos to the same gallery under its own sub-event. Then download the whole archive and send it to every branch of the family, in Ireland and abroad, so nobody has to ask a sibling for the photos later.
Common questions about Irish wakes
Can relatives abroad watch the wake, the removal and the funeral?
The funeral Mass is usually already streamed by the parish on its webcam, and that link should go to everyone abroad. For the rest, Live Pass streams up to 90 minutes on a private link to as many as 100 viewers, with audio, from an ordinary phone held by someone in the room. Use it for the rosary at the wake house, the removal, the graveside, or the songs at the afters. Viewers open the link on any phone or laptop with nothing to install. Ask the priest and the family first, and tell the room that a cousin in Sydney is watching; people are glad to know.
Is it appropriate to have a QR code at a wake?
It is, if it is small and placed with care. A card beside the book of condolence, or on the table with the old photographs and the memorial cards, is where people already pause, and it reads as an invitation to add to the family's album rather than a request to photograph the room. Nobody is asked to take pictures at the wake itself. What comes in from the wake is old photos people already have, recorded stories, and written condolences from the same page, and those arrive from home, later that night, when people have had a chance to think.
Can the songs and the stories be recorded?
Yes. From the upload page a guest can record a video message of up to 30 seconds or a voice message of up to 60 seconds, in the browser, with no app. For a song at the afters or a longer story, one person films it with their phone camera and uploads the clip afterward; video uploads are included within the 25 GB fair-use limit for the event. Ask the singer before you record, and ask the family before you share. Recordings are kept in the same gallery as the photos and can be downloaded at full quality.
Who can see the album?
Only the people you give the link or code to. The gallery is private by default, never listed publicly, and guest pages are blocked from search engines and AI crawlers. If you turn on host review, everything waits for a family member's approval before anyone else sees it, and you can pass that job to a cousin so the immediate family is not doing it that week. You can remove anything, close the gallery to new uploads when you choose, and download the whole album as one archive at any time.
What does it cost, and does the month's mind need a second pass?
An Event Pass is $29, paid once, and it covers the whole thing: the wake, the removal, the funeral and the month's mind as sub-events under one code, unlimited uploads within a 25 GB fair-use bound, voice and video messages, host review, full-resolution downloads and 365 days of hosting. No subscription and no charge per guest. Live Pass is a $39 one-time add-on, or included in the Picsui Complete at $49, which suits families with many relatives abroad.
Every photo from Irish wakes, in one place
One-time Event Pass, $29. No subscription, no per-guest fee.
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