A Pittsburgh-based burial-services firm announced this week a multimillion-dollar partnership with an Irish company to offer specially designed caskets and urns in the United States for the dearly departed of Irish descent.
Matthews International's deal is with Heritage Casket Co., which offers urns and caskets with iconic symbols of Ireland such as the Claddagh and Saint Patrick. Heritage will market both Irish- and Italian-themed funeral products through Matthews' funeral-home customers and its authorized distributors in the United States and Canada.
Matthews in turn will market its caskets and other funeral products in Europe through Heritage's sales-distribution network.
The partnership was announced following a business breakfast in New York City hosted by Enterprise Ireland, a government agency responsible for helping Irish companies grow internationally. Matthews didn't say exactly how much the deal was worth, but said it would offer U.S. families casket styles not previously available in this country.
Matthews, founded in 1850, is best known for its cast bronze memorials. Among its other products are mausoleums, caskets and cremation products and equipment.
(E-mail Patricia Sabatini at psabatini(at)post-gazette.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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