Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to the burial or interment of an intact dead body. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre is an ancient tradition. Starting in the 19th century, cremation was introduced or reintroduced into other parts of the world. In modern times, cremation is carried out with a closed furnace, at a crematorium. Cremation leaves behind an average of 2.4 kg of remains, known as "ashes" or "cremains". This is not actual ash but unburnt fragments of bone mineral, which are ground down into powder, they do not constitute a health risk and may be buried, interred in a memorial site, retained by relatives or scattered in various ways. Cremation dates from at least 17,000 years ago in the archaeological record, with the Mungo Lady, the remains of a cremated body found at Lake Mungo, Australia. Alternative death rituals emphasizing one method of disposal of a body—inhumation, cremation, or exposure—have gone through periods of preference throughout history.

In the Middle East and Europe, both burial and cremation are evident in the archaeological record in the Neolithic era. Cultural groups had their own prohibitions; the ancient Egyptians developed an intricate transmigration-of-soul theology, which prohibited cremation. This was widely adopted by Semitic peoples; the Babylonians, according to Herodotus, embalmed their dead. Early Persians practiced cremation. Phoenicians practiced both burial. From the Cycladic civilisation in 3000 BCE until the Sub-Mycenaean era in 1200–1100 BCE, Greeks practiced inhumation. Cremation appeared around the 12th century BCE, constituting a new practice of burial influenced by Anatolia; until the Christian era, when inhumation again became the only burial practice, both combustion and inhumation had been practiced, depending on the era and location. Romans practiced both, with cremation the rule until the imperial period. In Europe, there are traces of cremation dating to the Early Bronze Age in the Pannonian Plain and along the middle Danube.

The custom became dominant throughout Bronze Age Europe with the Urnfield culture. In the Iron Age, inhumation again becomes more common, but cremation persisted in the Villanovan culture and elsewhere. Homer's account of Patroclus' burial describes cremation with subsequent burial in a tumulus, similar to Urnfield burials, qualifying as the earliest description of cremation rites; this may be an anachronism, as during Mycenaean times burial was preferred, Homer may have been reflecting the more common use of cremation at the time the Iliad was written, centuries later. Criticism of burial rites is a common form of aspersion by competing religions and cultures, including the association of cremation with fire sacrifice or human sacrifice. Hinduism and Jainism are notable for not only prescribing cremation. Cremation in India is first attested in the Cemetery H culture, considered the formative stage of Vedic civilization; the Rigveda contains a reference to the emerging practice, in RV 10.15.14, where the forefathers "both cremated and uncremated" are invoked.

Cremation remained common but not universal, in ancient Rome. According to Cicero, in Rome, inhumation was considered the more archaic rite; the rise of Christianity saw an end to cremation in Europe, though it may have been in decline. This stance was influenced by its roots in Judaism, the belief in the resurrection of the body, the example of Christ's burial. Anthropologists have been able to track the advance of Christianity throughout Europe with the appearance of cemeteries. In early Roman Britain, cremation was usual but diminished by the 4th century, it reappeared in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration era, when sacrificed animals were sometimes included with the human bodies on the pyre, the deceased were dressed in costume and with ornaments for the burning. That custom was very widespread among the Germanic peoples of the northern continental lands from which the Anglo-Saxon migrants are supposed to have been derived, during the same period; these ashes were thereafter deposited in a vessel of clay or bronze in an "urn cemetery".

The custom again died out with the Christian conversion of the Anglo-Saxons or Early English during the 7th century, when Christian burial became general. In parts of Europe, cremation was forbidden by law, punishable by death if combined with Heathen rites. Cremation was sometimes used by Catholic authorities as part of punishment for accused heretics, which included burning at the stake. For example, the body of John Wycliff was exhumed years after his death and burned to ashes, with the ashes thrown in a river, explicitly as a posthumous punishment for his denial of the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation; the first to advocate for the use of cremation was the physician Sir Thomas Browne in 1658. Honoretta Brooks Pratt became the first recorded cremated European individual in modern times when she died on 26 September 1769 and was illegally cremated at the burial ground on Hanover Square in London. In Europe, a movement to reintroduce cremation as a viable method for body disposal began in the 1870s.

This was made possible by the invention of new furnace technology and contact with eastern cultures that practiced it. At the time, many proponents believed in the miasma theory, that cremation would reduce the "bad air" that caused diseases; these movements were associated with secularism and gained a

Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe was an eccentric British myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his enthusiastic championing of the renaming of the genus Lasius after him as Donisthorpea, for his many claims of discovering new species of beetles and ants, he is considered to be the greatest figure in British myrmecology. Educated at Mill Hill House and Oakham School, Donisthorpe went to Heidelberg University to read medicine. However, his "too sensitive nature" forced him to give up this career. Being possessed of a private income, from about 1890 he devoted his life to the study of beetles and ants, publishing more than three hundred papers on ants alone. Derek Wragge Morley says in his obituary of Donisthorpe in Nature, that he related a story of how, when a young man, he had swum across the Rhine at Heidelberg, "a feat which, so it was said, no one had achieved before"; the best known of his collecting grounds were the ancient forests of Windsor Great Park in Berkshire where he had permission to collect extensively and where so many of his important discoveries were made.

During his career he associated with many other prominent British entomologists, including Canon Fowler, with whom he co-authored the last volume of'Coleoptera of the British Islands, A. A. Allen. Donisthorpe was controversial in part because he was considered overeager in his attempts to describe new species of ants and beetles. For example, he named 24 new species of beetle from Britain, but 22 have since been deemed to be insufficiently distinct to be considered separate species and have been made synonyms of earlier species; the only two British beetle species that he described which remain valid are the rove beetles: Leptacinus intermedius, Ilyobates bennetti. Species which Donisthorpe described anew that turned out to have been classified include: Aenictus bidentatus, Rhytidoponera gagates, Diacamma rugosum, Leptogenys walkeri, Leptogenys violacea, Polyrhachis bryanti, Polyrhachis hosei. Polyrhachis hosei provides an interesting demonstration of Donisthorpe's zeal for new species coming into conflict with existing ones.

His description starts: "The general description of P. byyani would do well for this species..." and goes on to describe a small number of minor differences: "a larger and more robust insect", "pronotal spines longer", "the scale has a somewhat wider arch", so on. Donisthorpe was a fellow of the Zoological Society of London and a fellow and vice-chairman of the Royal Entomological Society, he resided at 58, Kensington Mansions, was known for his lavish parties, which led to the dissipation of much of his family fortune. He was an associate of Auguste-Henri Forel, with whom he stayed in Switzerland in 1914. Donisthorpe's extensive and beautifully curated collection of British beetles is housed at the Department of Entomology at the Natural History Museum; the Coleoptera of the Isle of Wight. Published in 1906 by the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society; the supplementary sixth volume was compiled with W. W. Fowler to the latter's Coleoptera of the British Isles in 1913. First published in 1915, this book was reviewed and republished in 1927, was the first major book written on British ants.

Although the first edition contained all the species known at the time, the second edition contained the addition of Lasius brunneus, a small, arboreal ants of the Lasius mixtus group found principally in orchards in the home counties. The 1927 edition was, too early for any mention of Strongylognathus testaceus, which Donisthorpe discovered in the New Forest several years later. Davidson, James. "Reviewed work: British Ants: Their Life History ana Classification. Second Edition, H. St. J. K. Donisthorpe". Science Progress in the Twentieth Century. 22: 350–351. ISSN 2059-4941. JSTOR 43430061. Wheeler, W. M.. "Reviewed work: British Ants, Their Life-History and Classification, H. St. J. K. Donisthorpe". Science. New Series. 43: 316–318. Doi:10.1126/science.43.1105.316-b. ISSN 0036-8075. JSTOR 1639520; the Guests of British Ants. Published in 1927, the same year as the revision of British Ants: their life histories and classification took place; this book deals with myrmecophiles of British ants, some of them ants themselves.

It mentions and debunks theories regarding the effect that the presence of a species of beetle has on the number of pseudogynes in colonies of the larger formica species. An Annotated List of the Additions to the British Coleopterous Fauna. Published in 1931, the title serves to be self-explanatory. A Preliminary List of the Coleoptera of Windsor Forest. Published in 1939, Donisthorpe dedicated the book to the memory of Florence Jane Kirk, his constant companion on collecting trips. In it he writes: "In memory of Jane Kirk, whose patience and unfailing energy were of invaluable help in attaining the results set forth in these pages." The book consists of a preamble detailing the various features of Windsor Great Park and its ancient forests, a list of the many hundreds of Coleoptera Donisthorpe collected there, with brief habitat details for each species. Donisthorpe, as chair of the Zoological Society of London and in his work at the Natural History Museum, oft

The 2011 Christy Ring Cup was the seventh season of the Christy Ring Cup since its establishment in 2005. A total of eight teams contested the Christy Ring Cup, including seven sides from the 2010 Christy Ring Cup and one promoted team from the 2010 Nicky Rackard Cup. Both Derry and Mayo failed to win any of their games in the 2010 Christy Ring Cup and qualified for the relegation play-off. No match took both teams preserved their status for the 2011 season. From these two teams, Mayo had the longest tenure as a Christy Ring Cup member as the team had competed in every season since the inaugural one in 2005. Derry joined the Christy Ring Cup in 2007 having won the previous year's Nicky Rackard Cup. 2010 Nicky Rackard Cup champions Armagh secured direct promotion to the Christy Ring Cup. They last competed in the competition in 2008; the tournament has a double elimination format - each team played at least two games before being knocked out. The eight teams play four Round 1 matches; the winners in Round 1 advance to Round 2A.

The losers in Round 1 go into Round 2B. There are two Round 2A matches; the winners in Round 2A advance to the semifinals. The losers in Round 2A go into the quarter-finals. There are two Round 2B matches; the winners in Round 2B advance to the quarter-finals. The losers in Round 2B go into the relegation playoff; the losers of the relegation playoff are relegated to the Nicky Rackard Cup for 2012. There are two quarter-final matches between the Round 2A losers and Round 2B winners; the winners of the quarter-finals advance to the semifinals. The losers of the quarter-finals are eliminated. There are two semifinal matches between the quarter-final winners; the winners of the semifinals advance to the final. The losers of the semifinals are eliminated; the winners of the final win the Christy Ring Cup for 2011 and were given the option of being promoted to the Liam MacCarthy Cup 2012, Kerry however decided to remain in the Christy Ring Cup in 2012. Widest winning margin: 17 points Down 1-20 - 0-06 Armagh Most goals in a match: 5 Wicklow 3-16 - 2-11 Derry Kildare 4-18 - 1-13 Derry Wicklow 3-11 - 2-11 Kildare Most points in a match: 46 Kerry 1-25 - 1-21 Kildare Most goals by one team in a match: 4 Kildare 4-18 - 1-13 Derry Most goals scored by a losing team: 2 Derry 2-11 - 3-16 Wicklow Wicklow 3-11 - 2-11 Kildare Most points scored by a losing team: 21 Kildare 1-21 - 1-25 Kerry Christy Ring Cup Champion 15 Awards 2011 Christy Ring Cup fixtures and results