It tells the tales of the County Donegal undertakers Charlie and Vincie Burn who run a turf-fueled crematorium.
Burn deals with a number of social issues common in Irish life such as drug dealing, dishonesty, ghosts, adultery, racism, drunken one-night stands, brain conditions, nicotine addiction, shipwreck, sexual repression, tax avoidance, thievery and the rare occurrence of accidental cremation.
He takes on the role of a corpse on one occasion when Vincie accidentally burns the wrong body and has to lie overnight in a coffin sporting a fake beard and with only sandwiches provided by Charlie.
[3] When Charlie and Vincie become stranded overnight on Tory Island, he is left alone at their house adjacent to the crematorium.
He proceeds to read ghost stories and becomes frightened after hearing the wail of a banshee which turns out to have been emitted by Spot the cat.
Charlie is unhappy with this betrayal of his heritage as can be seen when he submits a false English language advertisement to the local newspaper in which it is claimed that Doyle will deal with foreign deaths.
Doyle rings back upon his arrival in Belfast and Vincie replies to the vexed undertaker who expresses his dissatisfaction at having been conned.
He also publicly praises Charlie during a Mass when he donates a large sum of money he has located to the church roof fund.
The series generated a great response from audiences, with devoted fan clubs springing up in Dublin, Belfast and further afield.