On 26 September 2026, The Spectator, founded in 1828 and the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the world, ran a feature on professional mourners by journalist James Dixon. The piece opens with MournMate.
"MournMate is a new online market-place that promises to connect bereaved families and funeral homes with professional mourners in the US. It was advertising for its first '500 Founding Members' when I looked, and, curious to know what it was all about, I signed up. The qualifications and requirements were surprisingly broad – the site was looking for actors, musicians, public speakers, eulogy writers, and anyone with experience of religious or cultural ceremonies."
From there the article does what we have tried to do on this site since the beginning: it puts professional mourning back into its history. Dixon traces paid mourners from Egypt and Rome, where visible grief signalled a family's standing, through the Irish tradition of keening, to Ghana and Kenya today, where hired mourners still sing, wail and give public shape to a family's loss. He contrasts these with modern services in Britain and notes that what today's professional mourner offers is less theatrical grief than steady, dignified presence.
Why it matters
The piece treats professional mourning as what it is: an old, human craft, not a novelty. It also records the rates we advertise, $25 to $300 an hour with a 50 per cent premium for emergency bookings, and the roles we look for: vocalists, eulogy writers, celebrants, retired clergy, trained ceremony professionals.
In the three days after the article ran, 39 new mourners joined MournMate from eight states, and more people found us that weekend than in the two weeks before it.
Read the full article
- The strange world of professional mourners at The Spectator (US edition)
- Syndicated at The Spectator Australia
Funeral directors: if the article made you curious, see how the partner program works. Mourners: the founding member program is still open. Learn more.