Alley to host first ‘death cafe’ in north west

THE Alley Theatre will host the first ever ‘death café’ in the north west next week.

The café is the brainchild of former Strabane woman Sarah Harrison nee Morrison, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2019, a diagnosis which has since become incurable.

With her husband and children, Sarah is now a native of North Shields in England. Following the news of her terminal diagnosis, Sarah was determined to use her remaining time constructively and set about creating a hub called ‘Sarah’s Star’ for patients needing palliative care and their families, setting up death cafés in the process.

Sarah explained, “For the first death café in Ireland I chose my home town as a means of giving something back.

“Since my diagnosis became known, I’ve received a lot of support from people in Strabane and I felt it was important to have the café there.

“My cousin Chris initially spoke with Louise (Boyce) at the Alley who then contacted me and she was more than happy to facilitate the café, for which I am very grateful. It’s something I think Strabane could benefit from greatly.”

So, what exactly is a death café?

“It’s not as morbid as it seems,” promised Sarah. “The purpose behind the café is to have an open space where people can discuss death and dying in an open and honest way; an opportunity to swap stories and advice and, to be honest, have a good chat and approach it in a light hearted way. I’ve done similar cafes here in England and there can be a lot of laughter in the room.

Sarah will be making the trip home to speak at the first cafe and, thanks to a collaboration with Mindjam, which supports neuro-divergent individuals and people with needs such as PDA, ADHD, anxiety and trauma through the medium of video games, she is hoping to secure funding to keep the cafes going, with the plan being to hold one every six weeks in Strabane with a different speaker.

Sarah concluded, “Talking about the unknown can be a taboo subject and am very much trying to take the power back to show people that talking about death isn’t always doom and gloom.”

Strabane’s first death café will take place next Thursday (November 21) between 6.30pm and 8.30pm and tickets can be found at Eventbrite by searching ‘Death Café.’ They are priced at £2.88