A man in Dublin, Ireland, decided to inject a little humor into his funeral Saturday by playing a prank on his loved ones.
Shay Bradley, a Defense Forces veteran who died on 8 October “after a long illness bravely borne” according to his obituary, shocked then delighted funeralgoers when they suddenly heard his voice shouting from his coffin as it was being lowered into the ground.
“Hello? Hello. Hello? Let me out!” stunned attendees heard in a prerecorded message that also included “knocking” against the coffin’s lid.
It continued: “Where the fuck am I? … Let me out, it’s fucking dark in here. … Is that the priest I can hear? … This is Shay, I’m in the box. No, in fucking front of you. I’m dead.”
Those at the funeral can be seen giggling and wiping away tears as Bradley’s voice begins to sing: “Hello again, hello. Hello, I just called to say goodbye.”
His daughter Andrea Bradley told HuffPost that her father recorded the audio about a year ago — and that no one really knew about it other than her brother Jonathan and her nephew, Ben. Two days before Shay Bradley’s funeral, Jonathan Bradley decided to tell his mum and the rest of his siblings about the prank. He told them that playing the audio at the funeral was his dad’s dying wish.
“He wanted to make sure my mam would be laughing leaving the cemetery, not crying,” Andrea Bradley said of her dad, noting that her parents were childhood sweethearts and were married for 43 years. “And he done just that.”
Andrea Bradley posted a video of her dad’s stunt to Facebook on Sunday. A Twitter user who wanted to remain anonymous said they stumbled upon the video on WhatsApp that same day and decided to share it on Twitter, where it has since gone viral.
Andrea Bradley shared a photo of “the legend himself” in the post’s replies on Sunday.
She added that the joke was her dad’s way of “saying not only goodbye, but to also say, ‘OK the sadness is over now here is a laugh so you can go and celebrate my life with a smile on your face.’”
“This prank was one in a million, just like my dad,” she added.