This Family Blasted Off Their Dad’s Ashes as Fireworks

One Dublin father went out with a bang this Halloween: the ashes of the beloved Irish father of two, who died suddenly last November 2, were sent up in a whirl of flame and noise when his family incorporated them into fireworks, which they fired off on Halloween night over the local soccer field.

Halloween was the 54-year-old Anthony ‘Barney’ Brack’s favorite time of year, the Irish Times reports, and Brack was a big fireworks fan, all of which led his family to decide on the unusual one-year commemoration.

“He started the Halloween fireworks display here 23 years ago,” family friend Marty Whelan told the Irish Times. “But he would always do it properly; everything was always well organized.” Adding to the irreverence of the evening, the Catholic church has recently announced a moratorium on the practice of scattering ashes, while the local Archbishop’s palace near where they set off the fireworks.

“There was a real devil in him, a roguish sense of craic,” Whelan added. “Everyone in the area was talking today about how much Barney would have loved it all. We reckon he is somewhere up there laughing at the craic we were having in his honor.”