Return to the elements. Return to yourself.

Orlagh House

Grounding · opening the circle

Arrive as you are at Orlagh, our home in the Dublin Mountains, and take your time landing. Find your room, wander the tree-lined paths, and breathe in the mountain air. Hannah and Lizzie open the circle with a grounding meditation, shared intentions, and an altar you can return to all week. Our first dinner together is where we become a group.

Kildare: Solas Bhríde, the Fire Temple & Brigid’s Well

Water and flame · tending the spark

Kildare is Brigid’s seat, where her fifth-century community took root and where the stories of saint and goddess still meet. We begin at Solas Bhríde, a centre devoted to her living legacy, then have lunch and free time in Kildare town. In the afternoon we visit the fire temple on the cathedral grounds, where a flame was once tended in her name, and we close the day at her holy well in ceremony, meeting the water with intention, with room to receive and to release.

1. MorningSolas BhrídeBrigid’s stories with a wisdom keeper, and weaving Brigid’s crosses with Lizzie
2. MiddayKildare townLunch and free time to explore at your own pace
3. AfternoonThe Fire TempleTending the inner fire on the cathedral grounds
4. Late afternoonBrigid’s WellA closing ceremony and blessing at the holy well

Newgrange & the Boyne Valley

The ancestors · light within the stone

Within a bend of the Boyne, Brú na Bóinne holds one of Europe’s great Neolithic ceremonial landscapes, and Newgrange was raised more than 5,000 years ago. At the winter solstice, dawn light enters its chamber through the roof box. Our spring visit is a guided encounter with the monument and its long relationship to ancestors, season, and light.

1. DayNewgrangeAn official guide leads us to the mound, the carved stones, and the passage inward
2. Evening · Orlagh HouseStories & songA seanchaí carries us into Irish folklore

Evening guest · storyteller & folk singerHelena ByrneClick to read moreShow less

Loughcrew & the Hill of Tara

Equinox light · awakening sovereignty

We rise before dawn for the spring equinox and climb to the cairns known as the Hills of the Witch, where Cairn T was built so the rising sun at this turning can light the carved stone within. The chamber is closed for conservation, so we greet the sun outdoors in ceremony, if conditions allow. Later we travel to Tara, the ceremonial landscape of Ireland’s high kings, whose lore asks what it means to live in right relationship with the land.

1. Before dawnLoughcrewEquinox sunrise ceremony among the cairns
2. Late morningThe Hill of TaraEarthworks, older tombs, and the lore of sovereignty
3. AfternoonOrlagh HouseRest and integration

The Hill of Uisneach

The sacred center · reclaiming your fire

Uisneach is held in tradition as Ireland’s sacred center, where the ancient provinces meet. Its lore names Ériu, the sovereignty goddess from whom Ireland takes its name, and remembers the great Bealtaine fire that welcomed summer. We walk the hill as a living meeting place of archaeology, story, and sacred fire, and ask what sovereignty feels like when it is rooted in the body and the land. We close the eastern circle in ceremony.

Galway City

Voice, color, and connection

Galway’s medieval lanes lead toward the Spanish Arch and the River Corrib, while music, craft, conversation, and Irish language culture keep the city vividly alive. We walk with a local guide to find the city beneath the color, then the day is yours: follow live music or traditional dance, linger over tea, and breathe before the next wave of work on the land.

1. MorningA guided walkGalway’s lanes and layered history with Arthur McGuire
2. AfternoonYours to wanderMusic, tea, and the colorful streets

Local guide · GalwayArthur McGuireClick to read moreShow less

Connemara

The living language of the land

In Connemara, stone, bog, mountain, and sea shape the rhythm of life, and in its Gaeltacht communities Irish is still a living language. We come to listen with humility to a culture that is lived, not frozen in the past. Keening, or caoineadh, is an Irish tradition of voiced lament for the dead; with Oonagh Sullivan we make space for grief and ancestral remembrance in a way that honors the tradition and what each person brings.

Ritual song & grief tendingOonagh SullivanClick to read moreShow less

Sligo

Ancestral remembrance · stone, sanctuary & spring

Three places in one day, each holding a different layer of Irish remembrance: the first farmers who honored their dead in stone, the friars who kept faith through fire and upheaval, and a quiet spring where people have come for healing for centuries. Between them, lunch and free time to explore Sligo town, and we close the day at the holy well with a final cleansing, working with its healing waters.

1. MorningCarrowmoreMore than thirty Neolithic tombs in a landscape almost 6,000 years old
2. MiddaySligo townLunch and free time to explore the town at your own pace
3. AfternoonSligo AbbeyA 13th-century Dominican friary with a rare carved high altar and a graceful cloister
4. Late afternoonTobernalt Holy WellA final cleansing with healing waters at a wooded spring by Lough Gill, honored since pre-Christian times

Cliffs of Moher & the Burren

Sea, stone, and restoration

At the Cliffs of Moher, ancient rock meets the full force of the Atlantic: a place to feel our smallness and our aliveness at once. The Burren changes the conversation, a limestone landscape where the Poulnabrone portal tomb speaks to ancestral rites thousands of years old. Seaweed bathing offers restoration before we close our western circle with ceremony and song.

1. MorningThe Cliffs of MoherWind, sea, and immense open sky
2. MiddayThe Burren & PoulnabroneA Neolithic portal tomb in a limestone landscape
3. AfternoonSeaweed bathingWild Atlantic restoration
4. EveningWestern closing circleCeremony, song, and what this journey has awakened