One fine summer day, Paddy was found dead in his back yard.
As the weather was a bit on the warm side, the wake was held down to only two days, so his mortal remains wouldn’t take a bad turn.
At last his friends laid him in the coffin, nailed it shut and started off down the hill into the churchyard.
As it was a long, sloping path and the mourners were appropriately tipsy, one fellow lurched into the gatepost as they entered the graveyard.
Suddenly, a loud knocking came from in the coffin. Paddy was alive!
They opened the coffinup and he sat up, wide eyed, and they all said, Sure, it’s a miracle of God!
Everyone rejoiced and they went back and had a few more drinks but later that day, the poor lad died again.
This time Paddy really died though.
I mean stone cold dead.
So, they bundled him back into his coffin, and as they huffed and puffed down the hill the next morning, the priest said, “Careful now, boys; mind ye don’t bump the gatepost again”.
Image used under a Collective Commons License from: https://pixabay.com/vectors/burial-casket-coffin-death-funeral-2028289/