THE HEARSE was parked on the expansive cobble-lock footpath outside St Mary's Church waiting for the return of the mahogany coffin. The biting winter wind came hurtling around the corner from the River Boyne slapping into the mourners' faces as they emerged from the centrally-heated church.

Friends had assembled to pay their last tribute of respect to one who had no further need of friends, tributes or respect.

Older, allegedly wiser, heads now filing silently from the church foyer still expected to see the drab, narrow vista of James Street greet them outside. The same folk expected the Marsh Road to rise sharply just beyond the Dale-bound tunnel, with the Diamond Bar positioned on the crest of the hill at the traffic lights. But it doesn't. Not any more it doesn't.

Instead a Matthews' bus jostled with an articulated truck for pole position at the lights on the wet, featureless dual carriageway.

Occupants in a line of cars with steamed-up windows waited impatiently in the filter lane for access to Mary Street. A little municipal park has replaced Dinny McKeon's pub on the corner. Holden's garage should have been just round the corner but it wasn't. Tony Reynolds' sweet shop should have been next door, but it too was gone.

One or two of the drivers glanced curiously over at the death scene as the coffin was laid carefully into the black MercedesBenz E Class long-wheelbase vehicle in which the body would now make its final journey.

Inside the coffin the face of the deceased bore a faint smile, and as the death had been painless, had not been distorted beyond the repairing power of the undertaker. Cancer. Cancer and morphine. It was the morphine that finally did the trick.

The congregation milled respectfully around the hearse, seeking out the bereaved, offering such consolation to the stricken relatives as the proprieties of the occasion required. Sorry for your trouble.

A group of older men stood snug along the church wall, shifting - first on one foot and then on the other, their hands thrust deep into their trousers pockets, their shoulders screwed up with the cold. They conversed in low tones and moved about restlessly, perfectly certain of what was expected of them. They knew the routine all too well.

Then the gloomy day grew darker as the illdefined funeral procession clumsily fell into place. A curtain of cloud underspread the sky and a few drops of rain fell as the wind gathered pace in gusts and cut the participants to the bone. The elements were having a great laugh toying with the occasion.

The leading car pulled out slowly, did a u-turn where the Brown Derby pub used to be, passed the architectural ghosts of Ally Farrell's, Sox Duggan's, Maher's Chemist, Pete's Chip Shop, Shields' Bakery, Fintan Murphy Electrical and Frank Sharkey's before heading up the Dublin Road.

And now the rain came. Impressed by the hushed convoy, cars gave way as the death parade passed. The little group of older men straightened their heads and walked in the middle of the road with impunity. It was the only time they could walk there and they got a great unspoken kick out of it.

The cortege passed the Sisters of Mercy Convent, where no nuns now reside. To the left should have been the Margarine, the Oil Cake and Woodingtons. All gone.

In the pensive gloom they turned right up the hill on to Poor House Lane, where the Poor Law Union - or the Spike - was once responsible for administering relief to the poor and destitute. Few alive know that this was once the road to Dublin. The walls and ditches on the hill give cover to rats and security to blackbird and thrush.

The well-worn graveyard route swung right and then left to the point where Calvary Cemetery could be seen, the final resting place, the final curtain.

Some within the melancholy crowd began to consider their own death. The atmosphere gave free reign to the imagination's most feared thoughts. They mused on the vicissitudes of life, the solitude of death and the grave, and the anguish of bereavement.

We've all been there. And we will be again. At a winter funeral in Drogheda.

- Tom Reilly