An Irish funeral gives you about a day. The notice goes up on RIP.ie in the morning, the reposing is that evening, and the burial follows. What decides whether flowers arrive in time is not price, it is which services can reach the town at all today.
Checked on
Ranked for reach, not for the latest clock
The national comparison on this site ranks services by the latest same-day cutoff. That order is the wrong one here. The services with the latest cutoffs run their own vans, and those vans cover Dublin and the four counties beside it, so for a funeral in Ennis or Ballina they are a next-day proposition whatever the clock says. The two that hand the order to a florist already in the town come first.
Relay network
Direct2Florist
A named florist in the town, with a number you can ring.
Your order is passed to a local florist, who makes it up and delivers it. You are buying the network, not the bouquet in the photo.
From
€34.00
Delivery
Not published
Set by each local florist and shown after you enter the delivery address
Same day
14:00
Most towns nationwide, wherever a member florist covers the area. Monday to Saturday; the order goes straight to a named local florist
Next day
12:30
Monday to Thursday, for areas no member florist covers same day
6 days a week, deliveries between 9am and 9pm, Republic of Ireland only
Figures read from each service's own delivery pages. "Not published" means the service does not state a figure, so you only see it at checkout.
The deadline is the reposing, not the checkout
Every service on this page publishes an order cutoff, and every one of those cutoffs is about when the flowers leave, not when they land. For an ordinary birthday the difference does not matter. For a funeral it decides everything, because the thing the flowers have to be there for has a time on it and that time was set by a funeral director, not by you.
Read the death notice on RIP.ie before you order anything. It carries the funeral home, the hours of the reposing, the church, and the hour of the Mass. Work backwards from the start of the reposing and give yourself the afternoon rather than the hour. A wreath that arrives at the funeral home at four for a six o'clock reposing is doing its job; the same wreath at seven is being carried in past people.
If the timing is genuinely tight, ring rather than filling in a form. The funeral director named on the notice will tell you plainly what still works, and a florist who knows the order is for a reposing at six behaves differently from one reading a delivery date off a screen. Nobody minds the call. They are asked this several times a day.
Outside Dublin the order inverts
This is the part worth knowing and the part no service will tell you. Three of the online florists here publish the latest same-day cutoffs of anything on the site, which is why they sit at the top of the national table. Look at the areas column and the picture changes: those cutoffs hold for Dublin, then run earlier through Wicklow, Kildare, Meath and Louth, and stop.
A relay network works the other way round. It has no van of its own, so it is never the fastest thing in Dublin, but it does not need one: the order goes to a shop in the town where the funeral is, and that shop delivers it the way it delivers everything else. For a funeral home in Castlebar or Dungarvan that is the difference between today and tomorrow.
The cost of that route is control. What arrives is the local florist's reading of the arrangement you chose from a photograph, in their materials, to their standard. For a funeral tribute that matters less than it does for a gift, since a wreath is a recognised form rather than a specific bouquet, but it is worth knowing before you are surprised by it. If you want to see which shop is taking the order, one of the two networks shows you by name before you pay.
The service not in the table
Eight services are compared across this site and only seven are ranked above. The eighth posts flowers flat and in bud through the letterbox, publishes no same-day option anywhere in Ireland, and sends a parcel that has to be opened, trimmed and put in water. That is a considerate thing to send to a house a fortnight after a burial. It is the wrong object entirely to send to a funeral home, and no cutoff would make it right.
Which route, under pressure
Use a relay network when
The funeral is anywhere outside Dublin and the commuter counties.
You want a wreath, a spray or a sheaf rather than a wrapped bunch.
There is a chance the time or the venue changes and somebody will need ringing.
The address is a funeral home or a church rather than a house.
Use an online florist when
The address is in Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare, Meath or Louth and it is still early.
You want the delivery charge shown before you commit rather than at checkout.
The flowers are going to the family home in the weeks afterwards.
What arrives should look like the photograph you chose from.
When the right answer is to send nothing
A death notice that says family flowers only has already answered this page. The line is not a formality and it is not softened by a small arrangement. A donation to the charity the notice names is what the family asked for, and a card posted to the house says everything flowers would have said.
There is also the case where flowers are right but the timing is not. The fortnight after a burial is the quietest and hardest stretch, once the callers have stopped and the house has gone back to itself. A small bunch arriving then is remembered far longer than anything that stood at the church, and it is usually easier to order, because there is no clock on it. Thesympathy guide covers what to send and when, and what to write on the card is the harder half of it.
Questions people ask
Can flowers be delivered to a funeral home the same day in Ireland?
Usually, if the address is in a town a member florist covers and you order before that service cuts off for the day. A relay network is the surest route, because the order goes to a florist already in the town rather than onto a courier from Dublin. Ring the funeral home first and ask when they want flowers to arrive: some prefer them an hour before the reposing rather than through the morning.
Should flowers go to the funeral home, the church or the house?
To the funeral home for the reposing, or to the church for a removal, unless the death notice on RIP.ie says otherwise. Flowers to the family home are better timed for the week or two after the burial, when the callers have stopped. Anything arriving during the Mass itself is a job for somebody who is already busy.
What is the latest I can order flowers for a funeral tomorrow?
Later than most people assume, and the table above carries the cutoff each service publishes for a next-day order. The tighter constraint is usually the funeral itself: a burial is often late morning, so an order that technically arrives tomorrow can still arrive after the coffin has left. Give the delivery instruction a time, not just a date.
Is a wreath or a bouquet right for an Irish funeral?
A wreath, spray or sheaf is what goes to the funeral home or the church, and it is what the relay networks are set up to make. A hand-tied bouquet in a wrap is for the house afterwards, where somebody has a vase and the time to fill it. Sending a formal arrangement to a family home a fortnight later reads as odd; sending a bunch to a coffin does too.
What does family flowers only mean, and can I send anything?
It means the family would rather you did not send an arrangement, and a donation to the charity named in the notice is what is expected instead. A sympathy card or a Mass card is always welcome and never reads as doing too little. Sending flowers anyway, past a stated request, puts the family in the position of having to thank you for it.
How much do funeral flowers cost in Ireland?
A hand-tied bunch or a small arrangement from an Irish florist usually runs 45 to 75 euro delivered. A standing wreath or a coffin spray starts around 80 euro and climbs quickly with size, because it is a frame that has to be built rather than a bunch that has to be wrapped. Delivery is charged on top by most of the services above, and the tables show what each one publishes.