this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2026

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End of Life Symbol - Irish hospital (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by aeronmelon@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

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This is posted in the waiting room of an Irish hospital. Interesting glimpse into their culture.

The full text of the poster

This symbol has been developed by the Hospice Friendly Hospitals Programme to respectfully identify the End of Life.

This symbol is inspired by ancient Irish history; it is not associated with any one religion or denomination.

The white spiral represents the interconnected cycle of life, birth, life and death.

The white outer circle represents continuity, infinity and completion.

Purple has been chosen as the background colour as it is associated with nobility, solemnity and spirituality.

In this hospital the symbol may be displayed on a ward to add respect and solemnity during end of life or following the death of one of our patients.

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[–] illi@piefed.social 151 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

not associated with any one religion

Celtic pagans beg to differ I imagine

[–] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 68 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Yeah I was a bit surprised at that line since I had always understood it to be a Celtic pagan symbol.

Can’t upset the Christians I guess -_-

[–] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 30 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

It’s possible they meant their symbol and its use isn’t tied to any single belief. The symbol’s original meaning might be why they went out of the way to say so.

[–] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This symbol has been in religious use for a long ass time.

They're just rebranding it.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 11 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It has been in general use across loads of areas of Europe - not just Celtic ones, even accounting for how widespread Celtic cultures used to be - and also since thousands of years before Celtic cultures emerged as a distinguishable group. I don't think it'd be reasonable for any one group to claim ownership of it at this point

[–] Amaterasu@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

As far as I remember, it represents the grandma, the mother and the daughter. Some type of cult to woman and generations. It was associated with Celtics and reprieved by Christian religions, specially because introduces importance to matriarchs.

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[–] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Ireland has a sizeable Catholic population, and Catholicism has a habit of subsuming local pagan traditions and gods and reworking them as their own.

[–] SarahValentine@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Ah yes, "pagan", that famously singular religion.

[–] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 37 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (21 children)

Celtic Paganism does in fact refer to a particular pagan religion and set of beliefs/roots of those beliefs.

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[–] illi@piefed.social 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Paganism is incredibly diverse, I will give you that. "Pagan" is more of an umbrella term for many different beliefs with some common elements.

But christianity for example is also an umbrella term - you have catholicism (whis then has the many different orders and stuff under it), evanjelical christianity (with its many denominations) and orthodox church (which may or may not have different groups under it, I don't really know). And even two different people within one denomination of the larger group of christianity may hold a slightly different set of beliefs.

Paganism is just a larger umbrella. I also went with Celtic paganism as it narrows it down a little more, that's why I went for that rather than simply saying "paganism".

Now I get what the hospital tried to go for. But saying it is not tied to a religion is I think a little unfortunate.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Really close, but off by one part: paganism is not an inclusive term. It's an exclusive term. Rather than groups (originally) agreeing they are pagans, Christians decided anything not Christian is pagan. The modern meaning of pagan is euro-centric because that's where Christianity took hold. The Norse and the Celtic and the Baltic and the Germanic "pagans" likely would not see themselves as on the same side of the argument against Christians. Grouping pagans together is like grouping barbarians together across the world. Literally, because barbarian is also a derogatory term. (bar-bar was the racist interpretation of foreign language by the Greeks and then Romans)

The meaning is shifted now because of 2000 years of Christian erasure. So sure, it might now be that Pagan is an equivalent type of term as Christian, covering many groups that identify themselves as their parent term, but that's not the historical context. That makes a difference when talking about the actual history.

[–] illi@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

You are right about that. But I didn't talk about history and how it effectively was deragotary term, as didn't find it relevant in this context.

"Pagan" became to mean non-christian, but afaik originally it meant "person from the countryside" - lat. paganos I believe (also see: heathen - person from the heath) - so people living in vilages and such, who took longer to convert from the old faith.

Anyway, as other commenter said somewhere here, these religions usually didn't have names historically that we know of. It was simply the religion to the people. Moreover, the religion was not centralized. The various tribes, even villages could have differences and their local gods that were worshipped. So yeah, christians came up with the umbrela term and yeah, it was developed as an insult basically. But it's what we have as a name for these religions.

I didn't find it relevant as modern day pagans mostly embraced the term and I don't think it holds same negative conotations as it did in the past.

[–] velma@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The Celtic Triskele! My mom had a bunch of these in her jewelry and house decorations. We always honored it as a symbol for the maiden, mother, and crone.

If you visit Boyne Valley, one of the cultural highlights in ‘Ireland’s Ancient East’, you're likely to find the Celtic Triskele symbol at the entrance of the 5,000-year-old Newgrange Passage Tomb. It dates back to the Neolithic era, and boasts true beauty in a serene location. However, that's not the only place it can be found.

Markings and artifacts have been located in various ancient sites, which also show us that the Celtic Triskele became popular with the Celtic culture from 500 B.C. onwards. These artifacts can be discovered in Ireland, as well as Europe, and across America.

The Celtic Triskele was a symbol that had various meanings for the early Pagans. One of them was linked to the sun, triadic Gods, and the three domains of land, sea, and sky. As we mentioned above, the Triple Spiral was also believed to represent the cycles of life, as well as the Triple Goddess -the maiden, mother, and wise woman.

[–] Deconceptualist@leminal.space 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I got to see that in person! Newgrange is fascinating.

I know folks here are arguing about Celtic pagan culture but the spirals actually come from neolithic peoples from 5,000 years ago that we know very little about. They predate the Celts and the Picts and even the pyramid builders of ancient Egypt. We don't know their language, religion, or much of anything except that they were pretty good engineers, moved enormous stones tens or hundreds of kilometers, and had a thing for spiral motifs!

[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Newgrange is essentially my holy place, and I hope to see it one day. Mythology or not, to stand where the Tuatha De Danaan are said to have inhabited and are now laid to rest would be otherworldly.

They're not my current brand of spirituality, but they set me on the path long ago.

[–] teft@piefed.social 34 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ran by air benders?

I thought water benders were more likely to be healers.

[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 32 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Looks like the Airbender symbol.

[–] one_old_coder@piefed.social 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Triskelion/trisquel and I really wonder why they appropriate and add bullshit meaning to a religious symbol. That's really weird.

[–] Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus 14 points 2 weeks ago

I'd say - since that is an Irish hospital and a Celtic symbol - that they knew where they took the symbol from, but wanted to be inclusive of other belief systems, which is the right thing to do when talking about hospice care. Why invent everything from scratch if you don't have to?

[–] Ephera@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I was gonna say, it looks like the logo of the Linux distribution Trisquel. I guess, that's not surprising after all. 😅

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[–] buffalobuffalo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

oh cool it's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskelion

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 weeks ago

I love that there's a wiki page to what amounts to humanities random doodle.

[–] dragnucs@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I came here to say it looks like the trisquel gnu Linux logo https://trisquel.info/. But found out from your comments it is the Celtic trisquel symbol. Confidence? I think not.

[–] lian_drake@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

It is the same lol, that's where the Trisquel concept/logo is from

[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 weeks ago

I learned that in children's hospital's, the symbol is a butterfly. I could never look at a butterfly quite the same way after that.

[–] Dr_Nik@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

The hospitals I have been in recently in the US use a purple butterfly for the same purpose...it's really sad to see when walking around.

[–] lian_drake@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

A triskel... odd choice

[–] Mutterwitz@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Does anybody else get upset because it is not centered?

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[–] Uranhjort@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Kinky. Someone should probably have googled who else have adopted a triskelion as their symbol.

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[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

isn't this Brigid's symbol?

[–] It_Is1_24PM@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That woild be St Brigid's cross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid%27s_cross

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Ah, thank you. For some reason I had the goddess Brigid associated with the triskele and maiden/mother/crone but there's so much overlap nowadays between goddess and saint that it's hard to find reliable sources on what was who.

[–] dragnucs@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Why do they need a symbol for that? Can't they just don't put any symbol? What does a symbol add?

[–] lb_o@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

How would you mark the room where someone just died. Maybe their family is there grieving.

"Please don't disturb" is slightly silly to put on a door handle

[–] dragnucs@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Maybe our customs are different. Usually this situation is very short and by the time you hangbthe sign, the person would already be transferred to the morgue. I lived in a similar situation where we had a family member die by night and by the time we reached in the early morning we went directly to a specific cleansing area. So it is very obvious what is going there.

We are Muslims and time from death to burial usually takes less than 24 hours.

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[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

Could just use F

[–] blinfabian@feddit.nl 3 points 2 weeks ago

end of life symbol. is this the windows 10 logo?

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