Brendan Bourke

Hone is the last of the old time gravediggers. He links the living with the dead. He is the keeper of their secrets. Tana is Hone’s apprentice who respects his uncle and doesn’t mind the physical work. However he finds the spiritual side of the job unnerving. Hone worries that Tana may not be able to pick up the role of the gravedigger and all that it entails. A series of incidents in the urupa (graveyard) lead them to both make final decisions.

Since 2008 the recession has been the biggest story in Ireland. Nobody has gone untouched by the catastrophic collapse of house prices, the banking system and the Celtic Tiger feelgood factor. The Break is a story about how Tim, a father of two, tried to cope for the first few months after everything went wrong.