He who laughs last laughs best — even if it’s from beyond the grave.
An Irish man who died last week managed to play one final prank on friends and family at his funeral using a prerecorded message that played shortly after his coffin was lowered into the ground.
“Let me out!” Shay Bradley can be heard “shouting” from his grave, in a video posted by his daughter Andrea on Sunday.
“It’s f—ing dark in here,” he can be heard saying between sounds of knocking on wood. “I’m in the box!”
Mourners can be seen cracking up as Bradley complains about his final resting place in occasionally vulgar terms.
“Is that the priest I can hear?” he says. “Let me out! Let me the f— out!”
The minute-long message ends with Bradley singing a tune from U.S. country singer Larry Boone.
“I just called to say goodbye,” he says.
Bradley, 62, was a father, grandfather and veteran of the Irish Defence Force who died on Oct. 8 in Kilmanagh, Ireland, according to his obituary.
His family members said it was a fitting end for a fun-loving man.
“All he ever wanted was to make people laugh and smile, and that’s exactly what he got,” Bradley’s granddaughter, Chloe Kiernan, told The Independent.
His daughter, Andrea, also celebrated his final prank in a series of tweets.
“He had a bigger than life personality, and wanted to make us all laugh instead of mourn when leaving the cemetery,” she tweeted on Sunday.
She added that the message played from a speaker near his grave — not from inside the coffin itself.
Bradley’s son, Jonathan, says he helped record the message and arrange the prank a year ago while Bradley was fighting a major illness.
“He wanted something special and for everyone to remember him as he was so that everyone, especially my mother, did not leave the graveside sombre,” Jonathan told BBC News.
He says he didn’t realize the video was being recorded until he saw the reaction to his sister Andrea’s post under the hashtag #ShaysLastLaugh.
“Love you forever Poppabear,” she wrote.
Andrea Bradley’s video of the incident has been watched more than one million times on Facebook. It’s also generated tens of thousands of comments from people wishing her well or sharing their own stories of loved ones who kept the humour alive after they died.
“Sounds like the kind of guy I would’ve liked to have a pint with,” one user wrote. “May he rest in peace.”
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