Soul Encounter Tours

07/02/2023

Well worth the read ☘☘

St Brigid’s Day: I let rip with all the fabulous magical realism I could muster and soon I had the General cornered

11/08/2022

Traditional Sean-Nós dancing, wonderful to watch.

01/08/2022

Celebrating Lughnasadh and the quarter day that brings in the harvest 🌞🌾🌾

29/07/2022

For all of you who left Ireland. 💔

29/07/2022

The wonderful Mattie Lynch, 13 years of age, singing "Grace". Worth a listen 🎶 ♥

12/07/2022

Its a bit of a climb, but well worth it.

17/04/2022

Happy Easter 🐣 💓 Pics: Ardboe High Cross and Abbey. The High Cross is over a thousand years old & one of the finest on Ulster. The site has plenty of clues to indicate that it was sacred before Christianity too. Always a special place.

16/04/2022

If your ancestors left these shores for a new life, this programme will be of interest. Zoom sessions available.

If you or your family have migrated to Northern Ireland, this is the programme for you. Join the CollabArchive team at Public Record Office Northern Ireland (PRONI), Nerve Centre and the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies this April-May for Leaving. Crossing. Arriving , a new month-long…

08/04/2022

If you are thinking about immersing in the magical and healing powers of Lough Neagh shores, this could be for you. 💚

05/04/2022

Tirnoney Dolmen sits outside Maghera, Co. Derry, & is easily accessible from the road. It was constructed c.2000-4000BC, and the energy around it is still palpable.
While I was there, the local farmer came down the road on a quad bike and slowed where I was, but didn't speak (possibly to check me out.) Her "drive by" reminded me of the local story of the farmhouse.
The story goes that when the farmhouse was built, the wife of the farmer saw a carved stone in the old grave yard which she thought was very beautiful. So she got her husband to dig it up and instal it as the lintel of the door.
However, once the stone was in place it supposedly screamed for an hour at midnight each night and dripped blood. It was soon taken down and returned to the church yard from whence it came!
To this day the small wood just east of the dolmen and farm house is still known localy as Morrisons rock.

17/03/2022

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh! ☘☘☘

10/03/2022

Your friendly reminder. :)

06/03/2022

The shores of Lough Neagh and a song for you. There is nothing to beat it.

18/01/2022

St Brigid
St Brigid and St Patrick were never canonized by any of the Catholic Popes. Brighid was known as Naomh Bríd or Holy Brigid. The Naomh meaning Holy was also applied to Patrick and many others. The Catholic Church in Ireland then decided to translate Naomh as Saint as it suited their purpose. The famous Brigid of the Catholic Church was said to be born in 453 at Faughart, County Louth, Ireland and she died on February 1st 523 at Kildare, Ireland. Note – the modern calendar was not in use at that time but the new festival for St Brigid deliberately displaced the old festival for the Goddess Brigid. Her death (St Brigid) is reported as being of natural causes and she was buried in Downpatrick, in east Northern Ireland with Saint Patrick and later on with Saint Columba. Her head was removed and is now in a Jesuit church in Luimar, 6mls from Lisbon, Portugal. No Pope would call her a Saint. The Jesuits have an obsession with collecting skulls but very few people know that the Jesuits in Lumiar, Portugal have the skulls of Brigid, Patrick and Columba while their 3 bodies are buried in Downpatrick in Northern Ireland.
More info and pics on the Goddess Brigid in our Slí an Druí online course at https://www.celticdruidtemple.com/sli-an-drui-online-course.html

06/01/2022

There are links to St. Dymphna in Tyndavnet, Co. Monaghan, (though it is disputed whether they are the one and the same person). St Damhnat founded a nunnery for women in the 6c.
The village is well worth a visit, including the old graveyard which has many beautifully carved 18c. headstones, with angels, humans in prayer and illustrations of the Tree of Life.. There is a holy well nearby too.

Saint Dymphna was a seventh-century teenager with a mind of her own. Her mother, a Christian, had Dymphna baptised in secret as her Dymphna's father, a wealthy chieftain in the ancient Irish kingdom of Oriel, was a follower of the old religion. Dymphna grew to become a devout Christian and despite her father's early efforts to marry her off, she took a vow of chastity and declared that she was henceforth dedicating her life to God. When Dymphna's mother died, however, the chieftain lost his mind with grief. He decided that as Dymphna looked very like her mother, she should take her mother's place in her father's heart and in the marital bed.

Dymphna was none too pleased with this incestuous suggestion. She fled her father's court, along with her mentor, Father Gerebran and a number of her father's aides. They sailed from Ireland and ended up in Gheel, in present-day Belgium. While there, Dymphna is said to have used the wealth she brought with her to set up a hospice where she and Gerebran took care of the sick and dying.

It was the money that she brought with her, sadly, that would be her downfall. She used coinage in Gheel that was peculiar to her father's kingdom. Her father traced the coins to Gheel and set sail with a small army, to bring Dymphna back.

Upon arrival in Gheel, he had Father Gerebran immediately beheaded and demanded that Dymphna return to Ireland and marry him. She refused, so he beheaded her. She is said to have been only fifteen at the time of her death.

The locals in Gheel buried their Irish refugees and built a church in their honour at the burial site. Soon after, claims of cures for the mentally ill who visited the church, began to emerge. Pilgrims travelled long distances to come and pray to Dymphna and be cured of their mental afflictions at the church. Eventually, the church was overflowing with people with mental disorders, seeking help. So, the people of Gheel opened the doors of their homes and took them in. Never referred to as patients, these boarders flocked to Gheel from all over Europe. This tradition of caring for mentally ill people in ordinary homes continues to this day in Gheel.

Saint Dymphna, the Irish teenager, is the patron saint of mentally ill people and the patron saint of Gheel, the town that gave her refuge.

02/01/2022

New Year was not always celebrated on January 1st mainly because there was no month of January! January (Ianuarius) together with February (Februarius) are the newest months on the calendar having been inserted around 700BC. During the month of March the New Year traditionally began until 153BC when it was moved to January. Thus, January and February became month’s number one and two and this accounts for why the literal current names for some months being are out of sync with their month numbers. September, October, November and December literally translate as the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th months.

It is often thought in error that the two new months that were added to the calendar were July and August. The month Quintilis (5th) was renamed July in honour of Julius Caesar in 44BC and Sextilis (6th) was renamed August in honour of Augustus in 8BC.

Before you go a bit loonie on New Year’s Eve, may we wish you all a Happy New Year! (fyi loonie/lunatic = someone whose sanity is affected by the Moon phase!) The month of January is named in honour of the god Janus by the Romans who is the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings and time. He is usually a two-faced god since he looks to the future and the past. Early Romans believed that the beginning of each day, month and year were sacred to Janus. They thought he opened the gates of heaven at dawn to let out the morning and closed them at dusk. The image here is of a Celtic idol with two faces (Janus form) in Caldragh graveyard on Boa Island in Lower Lough Erne, Co. Fermanagh (see below)

While the sun gives us our calendar year the moon gives us the months in fact the word ‘month’ is named after the moon. It is a period calculated to be one complete phase of the moon. The seven-day week also comes from the lunar cycle due to the four principal lunar phases namely the first quarter, full moon, last quarter and new moon. Each of the four lunar phases is roughly 7 days or roughly 7.38 days but each varies slightly due to lunar apogee and perigee. The Moon's orbit is fiendishly difficult to explain, so for more information lookup the phrase ‘barycentre’.

The average calendrical month, which is one twelfth of a year, about 30.44 days, while the Moon's phase (synodic) cycle repeats on average every 29.53 days. Therefore, the timing of the Moon's phases shifts by an average of almost one day for each successive month.

So today, we have a lunar calendar superimposed on a solar calendar but the two cycles are not synchronous. Reconciling the two was one of the greatest challenges faced by scholars and was only solved in with the calendar reforms under Pope Gregory in 1582.

January 1st was not universally accepted as the start of the New Year and many countries continued to observe New Year at various times. For example, the Byzantine Empire or the old Eastern Roman Empire celebrated New Year on September 1st.

When the calendar was reformed under Pope Gregory in 1582 and January 1st was officially declared New Year, many protestant countries were slow to adopt a “Catholic” calendar. Accordingly, Ireland under the control of Protestant England, held New Year on the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25th. Continuing right up until 1752 when the English finally relented. It should be noted that most countries in Western Europe had officially adopted January 1st as New Year's Day even before they adopted the Gregorian calendar.

History students might be bemused to find that the English parliamentary record lists the ex*****on of King Charles I as occurring on 30th January 1648 and not 1649. 1648 did not end until the 24th of March but historians have retrospectively adjusted the start of the year to 1 January and record the ex*****on as occurring in 1649.

While you are shivering in the cold (or baking in the southern hemisphere) in the middle of the night waiting for a new day to start at midnight remember the eve in New Year’s Eve is short for evening. This is because in many societies including Celtic societies, the new day began at sundown putting the evening at the beginning of the day and not at midnight.

Image: A Celtic idol with two faces (Janus form) in Caldragh graveyard on Boa Island in Lower Lough Erne, Co. Fermanagh from the early Celtic period in Ireland (probably middle of first millennium BC). It is called a Janus-figure because it has two faces, reminding some of the Roman two-headed deity, however, it is not a representation of Janus. It is thought to represent a Celtic deity especially given that the Island is named after the Celtic goddess Badhbh, sometimes spelled, Badb

01/01/2022

Welcome to 2022. Hope to welcome you back here soon.

The Old Cross of Ardboe – 1.00am Saturday 1 January 2022
Still standing after 1200 years, give or take a decade or two

24/12/2021

Happy Christmas to you.

23/12/2021

Ella Young was born in Fenagh in 1867 and grew up in Dublin, where she did a master’s degree in Trinity College. As a young woman, she was deeply involved in the Celtic revival and was a close friend of George Russell, Maud Gonne and Patrick Pearse, among others. She played a minor role in the Rising of 1916.

But it was in the field of literature that Ella excelled, writing poetry and popular versions of Irish legends and folk stories.

In 1925, Ella immigrated to America, where she was employed at the University of Berkley, California, in the field of Celtic Studies. She was a colourful figure, who often lectured while dressed in druid’s robes and who professed to believe in the fairies and in other supernatural beings from Irish folklore and tradition.

Until her death in 1956, Ella published prolifically, writing poetry, stories, and scholarly works.

19/12/2021

17/12/2021

For all of you (and your ancestors) who left these shores. Happy Christmas 🎄 💓

14/12/2021

Beautiful.

https://president.ie/en/media-library/news-releases/president-higgins-to-release-special-chamber-choir-ireland-performances-from-aras-an-uachtarainPresident ...

13/12/2021

Really interesting read about the older traditions of Christmas Eve, and Mothers Night.

Mothers Night: The Ancient Pagan Origins of Santa?

An ancient winter festival which stems from at least the Iron Age is Mothers Night or Modraniht.
This celebration took place on what is now Christmas Eve, and was associated with honouring female ancestors and spirits, hence the association with mothers.
What may be surprising to some is that this celebration is also echoed in some Irish Christmas Eve folklore.

Unlike other less attested feasts which took place at this time, we have definitive written documentation of this celebration going back to the 8th century, and relics of these same deities in the form of the Dísir and Matres from the first century.
The oral tradition goes back much further, possibly to the early European fertility goddesses.
Similar Bronze Age triple goddesses are also found in Anatolia, perhaps indicating a proto-Indo-European root. The seven Matrika goddesses, for example, extend back to at least 3’000 BCE.
The Dísablót of Northern Europe was held during winter nights as well as the Vernal Equinox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dísablót

Now, this is an interesting occurrence because the fairies and spirits associated with the Pleiades (Including the aforementioned Matrika) were also acknowledged at these times. But that is probably a post for another time except to say that we should not be so quick to forget that the stars were as much a reason for seasonal celebration as the rebirth of the sun!
In this context, the longest nights of the year would have been a time when the stars were more present in the lives of people and therefore would have been seen to be more influential.
As I have written about quite a few times here, we are finding more and more monuments aligned to constellations and pole star positions on auspicious days which verifies this.
I would expect that this will be the case here in Ireland as well.

But back to Mothers Night. This was a night when offerings and sacrifices were made to the goddesses, the foremothers and female ancestors. Offering a portion of a meal, leaving out butter, honey or drink were popular means of appeasing and expressing respect and thanks.
Burning fires, incense and divining prophecy for the year ahead were other activities associated with this night. This should be no surprise considering the links between the Dísir, the Norns and Moirai, all triple groupings of supernatural women/ goddesses controlling fate.

It is interesting to look at this tradition in light of a previous goddess mentioned here, la Befana, who flew into houses bringing fortune to children who had been good, and pieces of coal to those who had been bad.
Befana is similarly connected to Perchta and the fairy queen, Nicnevin, who was often considered to lead The Wild Hunt at Yule. This was a procession of elves, fairy spirits, the dead and other supernatural entities.
Although it is often considered bad luck to encounter this hunt on parade it is interesting to note the more playful and teasing aspects of Irish folkloric encounters. (Not to ignore the actual deaths of others who are dragged along by this ghostly chase!)

This tradition of a woman travelling the world bringing gifts is also embedded in Irish lore. Could this be a remnant of the ancient goddesses bringing good fortune?
Here is one example of a surviving tale which was recorded in Carlow in 1937.
“It is said that every Christmas Eve night an old woman goes on a sleigh from one side of the world to the other. The sleigh is pulled by dogs and it goes on the clouds. One Christmas Eve the shaft of the sleigh broke and she fell to the ground. She landed beside a carpenter's shop. The carpenter made a shaft for her sleigh.
He watched and watched until she was out of sight then he looked at the ground and by some magic power all the chips turned into gold.”
Original source here: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5044666/5030337/5142569
With later Irish Christmas Eve folklore, much like with Brigid at Imbolg, for example, we see Mary substituted for the more ancient Goddess figure.


As you can see, then, there are also some startling parallels to la Befana, who was a goddess who flew from house to house in ancient tales in mainland Europe at Midwinter. And, as already mentioned, la Befana herself is connected to the goddesses Perchta and Holda.
The old woman in this instance might also be another form of the Cailleach, of course. There are strong links to the Cailleach initially being associated with Goddess figures of mainland Europe before the associations with Ireland and Scotland

There are also ancient traditions related to the Deer Mother figure of the Asian shamanic peoples as well the tribes of Scandinavia, Scotland and the indigenous North American peoples.
See the previous post for more on this. We have already mentioned how the various Goddess figures flew through the air on a sleigh, carried the sun in the antlers of a deer, and delivered gifts to the people.

So, perhaps Christmas Eve should be remembered for its much older association with female ancestors and spirits, as well as it’s association with the beginning of a new yearly sun cycle.
Mother's Night was a moment of personal closeness and reflection for families, daughters and sons.
It was a time to remember the mothers who had passed on, and as the dark nights reached their end and the new light was about to be born it was the moment of contact between endings and new beginnings.

(C.) David Halpin.

Photo.
The Shamaness of Bad Dürrenberg reconstruction by James Dilley.

09/12/2021

An article about some of our cures
OLD IRISH CURES AND SIGNS
By Verdun Ball

Over two centuries ago in Ireland there were cures for almost everything. The cure for a dog bite was to place some of the hair from the dog on the bite; the cure for a cut in the hand was to place a cobweb on the cut and allow the blood to seep through the cobweb. For measles, nettles were boiled and a drop of whiskey added to the juice.

Faraban was a w**d hated by farmers. If you had a bad cut you chewed a faraban leaf, then spat on the blood. This stopped the bleeding immediately. Faraban was also used to cure sores.

Ragw**d was used to heal sore throats, chickenw**d for sore eyes. Ivy was used to cure corns, by pulling a leaf, then putting it on the corn. It was also used for curing chillblains – by boiling it, then bathing them in water.

Soap, melted in a spoon over heat with sugar added, was used to ‘draw’ boils. Vinegar was used to kill chillblains and wasp stings.

For a bad cold, buttermilk was boiled with two teaspoons of sweet milk. The buttermilk always curdled and cured the cold. To cure corns, caster oil was put on a clean piece of cloth. Changed a couple of times a day, this was always guaranteed to ‘root out the corn.

08/12/2021

Imauguration as a sacred ceremony, at sacred sites. Also, the power of three is noted.

Lesson 27/40 excerpt from the online course Ancient Ireland Culture and Society | SAVE 20% here: http://www.goo.gl/0NDL8v.https://www.paypal.me/brehonlawacad...

24/11/2021

The Cailleach. Her very name translates as ‘Veiled One’, hinting at darkness. Her second name, Bheur or Bheara, translates as […]

31/10/2021

Its halloween today, but it is not Samhain - they are two seperate festivals - one is catholic and the other is pagan. One is celebrated as prescribed by the gregorian calendar and the other one tunes in to the indigenous calendar of the Sun, Moon and Stars.

Samhain is a festival of light that is celebrated as we head into darkness....there are two Samhains, one related to the bright Star Tlachtga (Antares) in its helical setting with Sun and the other one is related to the Dark Moon - when the bright Star Tlachtga (Antares) sets with the Sun and the Dark Moon making an alignment at the end of the day to Earth.

The nearest Dark Moon to Solar Samhain is when we celebrate Celtic New Year...........yes our ancestors are honoured at this time but not in a ghoulish monster way..........we celebrate and honour our ancestors by shining our own light when the world around us has gone dark. The Dark Moon of Samhain is the end of the old year and the start of our new year = our Happy Celtic New Year is on thursday 4th of Nov 2021.

28/10/2021

As Samhain (Halloween) approaches, it is good to remember its origins and celestial alignments.

Part 2 of 3.
The Three Samhains in Celtic Ireland today
The charts below shows the Catholic celebrations and the Celtic Celebrations they tried to displace. Many of the Catholic celebrations are moveable but the Sunrise point over Lambay Volcano is not. The Celtic and pre-Celtic festivals are aligned to the Sun rising with a specific degree of the Belt of the Zodiac in the background and this is shown with two markers i.e. the Belt of the Zodiac and the East of North coordinates – these do not change when a human makes a calendar.

Catholic Ceremonies to displace the Celtic Ceremonies -
Christs Birthday 25 Dec
Candlemas 2 Feb
Easter 25 Mar
Pentecost / Ascension May/June
Feast of St. John 24 June
Assumption Day 15 Aug
Michaelmas / Nativity of Mary 8 Sept
All Souls Day/ All Saints Day 1 Nov

Celtic Ceremonies centered on Tara based on Solar Alignments over Lambay Volcano -
Winter Sun Standing 0* Capricorn 135*EoN 20 / 23 Dec
Imbolg 10* Aquarius 117*EoN 30 Jan / 2 Feb
Spring Equinox 0* Aries 88*EoN 20 / 22 Mar
Beltine 10* Ta**us 60*EoN 30 Apr / 2 May
Summer Sun Standing 0* Cancer 45*EoN 21 / 22 June
Lughnasa 10* Leo 60*EoN 30 July / 2 Aug
Autumn Equinox 0* Libra 88*EoN 20 / 23 Sept
Samhain 10* Scorpio 117*EoN 30 Oct / 2Nov

Samhain has its own alignment similar to the Winter Solstice at Newgrange (Brú na Boinne). This is at a Passage cairn called Cairn ‘L’. This cairn is found in the Hills of Loughcrew, which is also called Sliabh na Caillighe or the Hills of the Witches but the proper translation of the old Irish name is the Hills of the Veiled Ones. This huge stone mound with its passage and chamber is unique in Ireland because it is the only one to have a Quartz Standing Stone inside it. On Samhain the Sun and Moon line up over Lambay Volcano to send their energies onto this Quartz Stone inside the Cairn. These Standing Stones act as acupuncture needles activating the earth energy in a region. If you visit this area you will be directed to Cairn ‘T’ and not to cairn ‘L’ and even if you are smart and ask to get directions you will not get much help from the authorities. This is because the family who owns the land do not want visitors to walk on their grass. The local man who owns the other hill (Cairn ‘T’) is often about to give direction to Cairn ‘L’ and he tells the story of the Nappers (owners of the land at Cairn ‘L’) as only being here since Cromwell times (late 1600’s). It is a good story and I’ll let him tell it to you. The gate to Cairn ‘L’ is locked and the key is not available to anyone. On Catholic Samhain the key holder opens the gate and a select group gets access.

More info and pics at https://www.patreon.com/celticpathwork