Celtic Ways Tales

Hello, we've moved - Links to where we are now

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 20:12:00 +0100

After a server change earlier this year, I have actually attached Celtic Ways.com to a redundant blog site of mine, but will get some better heading art here soon.

Meanwhile ...

... this is a hub page to get you to what we do here from Carrowcrory, Co.Sligo in Ireland

Carrowcrory Cottage & Labyrinth Gardens

We host Sunday Sessions here in our Labyrinth Gardens on a catalogue of topics including Ogham, Sidhe, Aislings, Green Men, Sheela na gigs, Holy Wells, Serpent folklore, Harpers and Bards folklore, Fairy Lore, Apple and Avalon folklore, Sensing Herbs, and other subjects, including Labyrinth Walking, of course.

Claire Roche, Songs, Stories, and Harps

Claire performs here at Carrowcrory Cottage and other venues. From this site you can catch up on her events, recordings and live performance videos.

Woodland Bard

That's me, John Willmott, who became nicknamed Woodland Bard by the attendees of Bards In The Woods. Here you will find my books, other media, and blog posts of tales.

Us And Trees, What Can We Do?

This year, 2019, the conversation of visitors to Carrowcrory has been concerns for the rapid increasing pollution of our earth, and anxiety about all of the huge forests burning. Us And Trees is a live presentation, hub site, and eventually courses of what you can do easily locally, ideas that should spread for the better.

Tree Labyrinths & Sanctuaries

A hub extension to 'Us And Trees, What Can We Do' for people who wish to create Tree Labyrinths or Tree Sanctuaries in their garden, community land, or farm, or maybe would like some visitors or help.

Bards In The Woods

After six years hosting this, no time for this now, except for retreat groups that book near here. This will be updated this winter to serve as an archive and tribute to the wonderful talent who joined us.

May news, our performances this month, book and cd latest

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 5 May 2015 08:59:00 +0100

Hello everyone

Claire and I back from the USA to some sunny days in Ireland but what now seems to be quite a wet and cool May ahead, but we are doing some wonderful things ...

featuring in this news ...

our May performances in Ireland
Find Your Story retreats in Ireland this August and October
Fae's Breath Tour UK in October
Fae's Breath Tour USA, April 2016
Bealtaine Labyrinth retreat in Ireland, May 2016

Claire Roche and I as Woodland Bard
... our May performances

All of these in Ireland ...

7th May, Thursday, Poetry Day Ireland

Poetry Among The Bluebells for Poetry Day
Derreen Woods, near Knockvicar, Co. Roscommon

among the bluebells, poetry, shared tea and snacks

7:30 pm meet up at the woodland gate car park
If car park is full, another car park a little north beside Fin Lough
If later than 3 pm text/call 087 208 2873 to locate where we are.

click here for Event Page on Facebook
click here for Google Map, needs zooming

Current forecast, showery, 11C, dry, mainly cloudy, some sunny spells. No cover charge, bring something to share as snacks and, optional, bring your own or favourite poems

9th May, Saturday (postponed from 2nd May)

Uisneach Fire Festival

Bathing In The Fae's Breath excerpts
with Claire Roche on harps, plus some of her songs.

Stage we are performing on seems to have various names
'Heritage Talks tent', 'Spoken Word tent', 'Holistic Area'
7:45 pm until about 8:45 pm, we are last performance on that stage,
obviously sheltered from any rain, intimate

click here for Event Page on Facebook
click here for Festival Flyer PDF
click here for tickets buying page
click here for Facebook Community Page
click here for Uisneach web site page

Current forecast, 12C, mainly cloudy, some sunny spells, maybe some showers.

10th May, Sunday

Bards In The Woods,
Derreen Woods, near Knockvicar, Co. Roscommon

among the bluebells, fairy ring, tall oaks, holy well
walk, foraging, poetry, stories, shared picnic.

3 pm, meet up at the woodland gate car park
If car park is full, another car park a little north beside Fin Lough
If later than 3 pm text/call 087 208 2873 to locate where we are.

click here for Event Page on Facebook
click here for Google Map, needs zooming

Current forecast, 16C, mainly cloudy, some sunny spells, maybe some showers. No cover charge, bring something to share at the picnic table and, optional, bring your own or favourite poems

17th May, Sunday

Bathing In The Fae's Breath, and Bards In The Woods,
Lough Key Park, near Boyle, Co. Roscommon

Open air Ireland book reading in the west
This will be reading and not with Claire.
The full book launch with us both will be at
Woodford House the following Saturday.

click here for Event Page on Facebook
click here for Google Map, needs zooming

Current forecast, showery, 14C, mainly cloudy, some sunny spells, some showers. No cover charge, bring something to share at the picnic table

23rd May, Saturday

Bathing In The Fae's Breath, Ireland Book Launch
with Claire Roche on Harps and Songs
Woodford House, Blackrock, Co. Dublin

Performance with Woodland Bard and Claire
Social gathering with light supper, signings and chat

click here for Event Page on Facebook
click here for Woodford House on Google
click here for Woodford House Google Map, needs zooming

More Upcoming Events ...

I will expand on additional info asap

24th May Bathing In The Fae's Breath at Glendalough, Co. Wicklow
Bards In The Woods event

13th June, Yeats Day 150th year celebration,
Claire Roche, Glynis Casson, for a special Yeats celebration on Sandymount Green, South of Dublin.

also, there will be Bards In The Woods Events and Concert Specials through 2015 that will be dedicated to W.B. Yeats 150th year since his birth. I will announce these soon

... certainly a 'fringe' event in Hazelwood on 14th June
again come back here for link or subscribe to my newsletter.

Bathing In The Fae's Breath Book.

Printed copies are available at our events

A Tree Hugger's Compendium and includes Ogma's Tale Of The Trees.

Downloadable copies, e-books, available from most book download sites

click for your copy of Bathing In The Fae's Breath e-book here

Upcoming Fae's Breath tours ...

We are looking at dates in the UK in October 12th to 26th
and back to the USA between March 28th and April 20th.

Welcoming offers of venues and hosting for both
house concerts, folk clubs, retreats, arts centers, community theaters, churches

Please click to contact me, Woodland Bard

Upcoming Find Your Story retreats ...

Find Your Story - August Retreat With Woodland Bard
August 17th, depart 21st -- 4 day retreat,
worth making as part of a longer stay, such as self drive tour.
Inspiration, authoring and published work all in 4 days !!!
Accommodation, all food, and transport,
€700, $US870, £560 per person sharing

contact me for information about this

Find Your Story - October Retreat With Woodland Bard
October 5th, depart 9th -- 4 day retreat,
worth making as part of a longer stay, such as self drive tour.
Inspiration, authoring and published work all in 4 days !!!
Accommodation, all food, and transport,
€700, $US870, £560 per person sharing
contact me for information about this

Woodland Bard - Tree Labyrinth Bealtaine Week 2016
Annual working retreat week as I need help getting the tree labyrinth ready
for the visitors through summer
This retreat is Saturday to Saturday May 7th until May 14th

Bealtaine Bards In The Woods on Sunday
Work days Monday, Tuesday, Thursday
Megalithic sites tour day Wednesday
Coast fun day on Friday

Accommodation, all food, and transport,
€500, $US650, £400 per person sharing
contact me for information about this

Other Retreats and Tours
that visit us at Carrowcrory

hosted by Amy Wilinski, Amantha Murphy, Mara Freeman, Dejuana, Tonja Reichley, Kathleen McKern Verigen and Charlene Ray.

click here to check out their dates, pages and offers

Get your Fae's Breath Books now, especially pre-orders please

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 18:51:00 +0100

Hello everyone

Quick announcement.

Very Important for USA book orders.
Please read! Thank you!

This USA tour has been a bit of a rush-rush time so time to do all what we want to do has been and is very limited.

This includes finding the list of addresses of people in the USA who are expecting the Ogma's Tale Of The Trees - Bathing In The Fae's Breath book.

If you are in the USA
have pre-ordered books
or want to order books

Bathing In The Fae's Breath
with Ogma's Tale Of The Trees

I will be shipping tomorrow afternoon,
Tuesday, April 21st.

Please email me your address to get your's
my address list is on a computer in Ireland
and I did not get it into the cloud.

Those of you who send me your email address
will get you copies sent tomorrow.

Many thanks.

This has been a very popular book on tour.

also click for your copy of Bathing In The Fae's Breath e-book here

plus

Journey With Claire Roche CD
is, at last, re-released
and still copies available:-)

Since CD copies went out of stock about five years ago, many of you, perhaps 100s of you, have asked for the re-release as the digital downloads were not an alternative option for you.

Well, here it is again !!!

This time released with an extra track, 'Symbolic', a bit of re-mastering and about 65 minutes long.

April News

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 4 Apr 2015 19:24:00 +0100

Hello everyone

Claire Roche and I as Woodland Bard
are currently in the USA touring

Looking forward to meeting some of you again.

We have ...

Bathing In The Fae's Book &

Journey With Claire Roche CD

with us

Bathing In The Fae's Breath tour it is.

Claire is performing her beautiful songs and both of us together with excerpts from Ogma's Tale of The Trees and Bathing In The Fae's Breath from my new book.

Towns where we will be at soon are San Francisco, Pacific Grove, Moreno Valley, Cotati, Arcata, Junction City, Eugene, Portland, Whidbey Island, Tacoma, Boise, Oakland, Boulder Creek

Please click here for the tour schedule and find out where you can meet us

Do click the Event pages, on the schedule, and come and see us :-)

Ogma's Tale Of The Trees became
Bathing In The Fae's Breath Book.

We have this available on our tour

Through this past winter, I found myself working on creating two books, so I made them just one, and that has become Bathing In The Fae's Breath.

click for your copy of Bathing In The Fae's Breath e-book here

Ogma's Tale Of The Trees is within this.

Claire and I will be performing quite a lot of this through our tour.

The printed book will be available for sale through the tour.
I do not know when it will be on Amazon, etc. though.

The e-book version is already everywhere now :-)
You can browse and order your copy here ...

Funds from this e-book help our
Bards In The Woods expenses fund, so very gratefully received.

Those of you who pre-ordered 'Ogma's Tale Of The Trees' printed book will get copies of this sent to you very soon :-). Those of you who ordered in the USA will get your copies shipped to you when we are in the USA.

Journey With Claire Roche CD
is, at last, re-released :-)

Since CD copies went out of stock about five years ago, many of you, perhaps 100s of you, have asked for the re-release as the digital downloads were not an alternative option for you.

Well, here it is again !!!

This time released with an extra track, 'Symbolic', a bit of re-mastering and about 65 minutes long.

Available for our USA tour starting in a few days, so do meet up with us to gert a copy and hear some of the songs live. Will be available from CDBaby in a week or so and Amazon, etc. in about 2 weeks.

I think that is enough news for now.
Got to pack and arrange tour managery kind of things.

Looking forward to meeting some of you, who are reading this, very soon ....

March News, USA tour next week, book release, CD release

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Mar 2015 16:02:00 GMT

Hello everyone

Claire Roche and I as the Woodland Bard are just about to land in the USA among many of you again :-)

USA Tour, March 29th until April 20th, 2015

20 concerts and meet-ups in CA, OR, WA, and ID

Towns where we will share with you are San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Pacific Grove, Pismo Beach, Carpinteria, Moreno Valley, Cotati, Arcata, Junction City, Eugene, Portland, Whidbey Island, Tacoma, Boise, Oakland, Boulder Creek

Please click here for the tour schedule and find out where you can meet us

Do click the Event pages, on the schedule, and come and see us :-)

I will be sending out info brochures for each venue during the next week.

Ogma's Tale Of The Trees became
Bathing In The Fae's Breath Book.

Through this past winter, I found myself working on creating two books, so I made them just one, and that has become Bathing In The Fae's Breath.

click for your copy of Bathing In The Fae's Breath e-book here

The Last Blog Here - But Not The Last Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 9 Jan 2015 12:43:00 GMT

Well into 2015 now and Claire and I, John aka Woodland Bard, wish you a blessed, happy and healthy 2015.

Its been awhile since I have posted blog posts here, and when I do they are general news blogs lately

New Blog ... Almost Daily Blog

This is something I started, I think, January 2nd. Its a great place for me to huddle the news and links of the day relevant to what we do. It certainly contains latest news before it even appears on my other sites and blogs

You can subscribe to it for email delivery too.

Click for the Almost Daily Blog, and look through back issues too

I have posted items related to Sustainable Living, Permaculture, Food Forests, Global Warming, Writing, Poetry, Music, Picnics, Labyrinths, plus some tree and forest stuff.

So please have a look at that
and subscribe for the email updates

Closing This Blog

I do not think I will be posting blog updates here in future.
and now this site will be dedicated to the development of my

'Tales From The Tree Labyrinth' book and recordings

This blog has been around for many years, at least 10 years, and there is a lot of content that I am returning to, updating and re-releasing as e-books, many of them FREE, so please look out for those.

Reason?

I am not sure if I have changed, matured or 'moved on' but I dedicated 55 years of my life, since being a wee child when I could first read maps, to a fascination for ancient megalithic stone sites and speculation of what happened in and around them. Add to that Ley Lines, alignments, divining, crystals and similar.

Experiences and dreams of the past 4 years have totally altered my perception to sensing these stone 'monuments' as symbols of human creation, control, power and elite. By doing so, we seem to have lost our position as 'guests' on this planet.

For many people it seems reverence, or even respect, for forests, flora, fauna, water, soil and weather has been diluted and perverted.

So for the rest of my days, I intend to be devoted to attention to forests, engagement with biodiversity, and connected to people involved in permaculture, local food, local water, spring wells and protecting our shores.

I still visit and awe some of these megalithic sites, but the 'awe' is really at how the biological diversity has reclaimed back what was once taken from them. You will rarely see me on farms with megalithic sites on them any more. I suppose our local Carrowkeel is an exception, but I am not there as often as I used to be. I tend to be around the forests around Lough Meelagh, Lough Key and Lough Gill more these days.

So, I hope you will continue to 'follow me' through my blogs ...

and through my e-books and audio being published through ...

plus let me know what you are up to as your work and callings may well be worth sharing through the followers of what I distribute.

Thank you so much for your past support to this blog

and look forward to meeting you through my other outlets :-)

See you at Almost Daily Blog soon?

December News - USA Tour, Ireland Retreats

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 19 Dec 2014 14:32:00 GMT

Hello everyone

We hope you are having a joyful December, fun packed and not stressful.

John here, writing, and I have been lazy with Yule and Christmas preparations myself. I think I am already celebrating the longer days before they are even happening. Here's why ...

USA Tour, March 30th until April 20th 2015

The format for concerts will be Claire performing her beautiful songs for about two thirds, or three quarters, depending on the venue type, and the rest will be both of us together with excerpts from Ogma's Tale of The Trees and Bathing In The Fae's Breath. I may add fireside

19 concerts and workshops

in CA, OR, WA, ID and NV

8 house concerts

2 community hall concerts

1 retreat center

1 hotel

1 wholefood and live food cafe

1 church, a big concert

3 venues unknown yet

2 day workshops

and we are still ooking for host an venue within 50 miles of Monterey on Tuesday March 31st

also for Reno NV on Thursday April 16th. Does anyone have any ideas?

Please click here for the tour schedule

Do click the Event pages, on the schedule, and come and see us :-)

I will be sending out info brochures for each venue in January.

Ogma's Tale Of The Trees & More

I have been dedicating myself to this work through much of November and this month December. The goal is to get stuff off to printers, music duplicators and e-book publishers by the middle of January. This is why I tend to be avoiding a lot of Yule and Christmas activity this year. Middle of January is really the deadline to have everything ready for the USA tour.

A lot of Bathing In The Fae's Breath has also been pulling together, 12 chapters, and Tales From The Tree Labyrinth, 9 chapters, to create a trilogy from this.

I have been trying out the Flip Book e-book format, which I find is delightful and much better than PDFs online. This is helping me out with format ideas too.

You can discover this work so far by clicking here

Click on the tree titles, there, to see more.

'Find Your Story'
and other Ireland Retreats

Thinking about 2015 vacations too?

We are serving four different tours and retreat packages of our own.
See what you think

Labyrinth Bealtaine Week - early May
This is a mix of work and play to help us get the tree labyrinth up and running for the summer, and enjoy sites and stories around us. Low cost and a lot of fun.

Bathing In The Fae's Breath - mid August
With Charlene Ray, a small group ptilgrimage tour covering counties, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon, Leitrim, Cavan, Donegal and Tyrone

Breathing Forest and Coast - early September
A four day tour and retreat mix, focused on Tree and Water mythologies, relaxation and adventure. Worth integrating into a longer Ireland vacation.

Find Your Story - early October
A four day retreat for inspiration, authoring and published work all in 4 days! Worth integrating into a longer Ireland vacation.

Add to this exceptional experience tours and retreats from our friends Amy Welinski, Amantha Murphy, Mara Freeman, Dejuana and Tonja Reichley who include visiting us at Carrowcrory in their itineraries.

Click here to discover all of these from my Retreats Page

Claire Roche Concerts

Two special concerts in Ireland to look forward to during 2015

February 13th at the National Concert Hall, Dublin
June 13th, Yeats Day 150th year celebration, with Glynis Casson
on Sandymount Green, South of Dublin.

More details, booking etc., in the early January News.

Bards In The Woods

2015 season starts off March 1st, National Tree Week, in Ireland, at Hazelwood, Sligo ... but more about this in January. There's a lot to take in from this news already.

Woodford House Events

Woodford House looks like being very active through 2015.
I will talk about upcoming events there in the January newsletter

To end a wonderful 2014 ...

Enjoy your Yule, Solstice, Christmas, Hogmanay celebrations, sharing and love.
Claire and I, John the Woodland Bard, wishing you a blessed year through 2015, and we look forward to meeting up with many of you them.

Mind, Body, Spirit, Retreats and Annfn

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 22:58:00 +0100

Hello everyone

Three items in our current news to share with you today

In Ireland? Mind, Body, Spirit & Yoga Festival

If you are in Dublin, or can get to Dublin this weekend, a Mind, Body,Spirit and Yoga festival in happening through Saturday, Sunday and Monday, yes, Monday included as it is holiday weekend.

Claire Roche is performing, and I join in a bit too, plus we are at stand 88, close to the performance area, so please come along and say Hello :-)

Opening times appear to be 11 am until 7 pm with a 6 pm finish on Monday

Performance times are

Saturday - 3:30 and 5:40
Sunday - 2:00 and 5:20
Monday - 1:15 and 3:35 then join in close at 5:30

click here for the event page for information and some pics

Look out for these banners at Stand 8. I will explain these within a later newsletter

Our USA tour through March and April 2015

Many thanks to those who have helped us to compile this tour so far. Some great gigs have come together.

One gig that is going to be an adventure is Annwfn up into a Mendocino forest mountain. I look forward to sharing more about that community, what we will do there and how you can join in.

For this 'Bathing In The Fae's Breath' tour

Claire Roche will be there with songs,stories and harps
and some stories and compositions with both of us

There are still some dates we are trying to fill. Surprisingly, this still includes the San Francisco area dates, and despite suggestions from several people in Portland OR that are enough to fill a venue, we still do not seem to have a fix on a venue there ... So a Portland venue would be wonderful, but no pubs Ár bars please. We do no do very well in those. :-)

Here is where we still have gaps

please click here to message me if you can help

March 30th (monday)
San Francisco, CA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 2nd (thursday)
Santa Barbara, CA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 8th (wednesday)
Arcata, CA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 9th (thursday)
Yreka, CA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 10th (friday)
Bandon or Roseburg or Eugene, OR
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 11th (saturday)
Portland, OR
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 12th (sunday)
Seattle, WA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 13th (monday)
Yakima, WA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 14th (tuesday)
Baker, OR
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 16th (thursday)
Winnemuca, NV
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 17th (friday)
Reno NV
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 20th (monday)
San Francisco
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

please click here to message me if you can help

please click here for live video samples

please click here for the full tour page

Retreats and Tour Vacations in Ireland 2015

There are now 12 tours and retreats that include at least one day around Carrowcrory in their itinerary. If you are coming to Ireland in 2015 there must be one to suit you?

I suspect there will be more than 12 soon as other people are talking to me about leading more of their groups here

I will be expanding on what we offer here very soon, but you can take a peek at what's touring and retreating here next year ...

I will be labelling this soon as 'Find Your Story' retreats and will explain this through an article soon, book later and through what I will share through Mind, Body, Spirit and Yoga Festival this weekend.

please click here for the listings of current retreats and tours during 2015

More news to come to you during next week.

In this news will be ...

next Concert Window concert online very soon
Woodford House Concert with Karin Leitner
Ogma's Tale Of The Trees latest

I will be back with you soon.

Claire and I look forward to meeting those of you at Mind, Body, Spirit & Yoga
over this holiday weekend in Ireland :-)

USA Tour 2015 & Last Bards In The Woods 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 02:40:00 +0100

Hello everyone

Two items in our current news I would like to share with you today.

In Ireland, Last Bards In The Woods this year

Autumn colours are at their best right now, this year
and Hazelwood, Sligo, is a wonderful place to see this.
2 pm meet up, this coming Sunday, 19th October

click here for the event page for information and some pics

Our USA Tour, March-April 2015

Hello everyone who lives in the West of USA or knows people there,
could you help us assemble our tour?

Claire Roche, songs,stories and harps
and some stories and compositions with both of us

Below is a list of the dates and towns planned.
Offers to perform within these towns,
or within 50 miles of these towns, are of interest.

We arrive in San Francisco March 26th 2015,
but it takes a few days to get used to the rented harp,
rented vehicle, new props, and to rehearse a bit of what we will do.

We will perform in San Francisco March 30th,
then get on the road after that

please click here to message me if you can help

Here's the list - how could you help us please?

March 30th (monday)
San Francisco, CA
venue - tba
host - tba
We have someone looking after us here
but cannot reveal details yet

March 31st (tuesday)
Salinas or Monterey, CA
venue - tba
host - tba
We have someone looking after us here
but cannot reveal details yet

April 1st (wednesday) -
Pismo Beach, CA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 2nd (thursday)
Santa Barbara, CA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 3rd (good friday)
Malibu, CA, or somewhere near
Better take a day off this day :-)

April 4th (saturday)
Merino Valley, CA
venue - tba in February
host - Elizabeth Wilmot
event Page - tba soon

April 5th (sunday)
Fresno, CA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 6th (monday)
Santa Cruz, CA
venue - tba
host - tba
We have someone looking after us here
but cannot reveal details yet

April 7th (tuesday)
Mendocino CA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 8th (wednesday)
Arcata, CA
venue - tba
host - tba
We have someone looking after us here
but cannot reveal details yet

April 9th (thursday)
Yreka, CA
venue - tba
host - tba
We have someone looking after us here
but cannot reveal details yet

April 10th (friday)
Bandon or Roseburg or Eugene, OR
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 11th (saturday)
Portland, OR
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 12th (sunday)
Seattle, WA
venue - tba
host - tba
We have someone looking after us here
but cannot reveal details yet

April 13th (monday)
Yakima, WA
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 14th (tuesday)
Baker, OR
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 15th (wednesday)
Boise, ID
Shangri La Tea Room, 7:00 pm
1800 W Overland Rd, Boise, ID 83705
click here for Google Map
hosts - Toni and Bob Hodge
ph - 208-424-0273
click here for web site
event Page - tba soon

April 16th (thursday)
Winnemuca, NV
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 17th (friday)
Reno NV
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

April 18th (saturday)
Mendocino CA
venue - tba

host - tba
We have someone looking after us here
but cannot reveal details yet

April 19th (sunday)
Carmel or Monterey, CA
venue - tba
host - tba
We have someone looking after us here
but cannot reveal details yet

April 20th (monday)
San Francisco
Can anyone host this, please? - or within 50 miles of here
house concert, church, community theater, arts center, retreat
or a bunch of friends somewhere?

please click here to message me if you can help

Thank you, we look forward to meeting you there :-)

More news to come to you during next week.

In this news will be ...

Claire and John at Mind, Body, Spirit and Yoga
Concert Window concert online this month
Woodford House Concert with Karin Leitner
Retreats and Tours In Ireland latest, with lots of info for coming to Ireland for a wonderful inspiring and fun time.
Ogma's Tale Of The Trees latest

Will be back with you soon.

I look forward to meeting those of you at Bards In The Woods tomorrow :-)

First quick October News

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 22:48:00 +0100

Hello everyone

I was trying to get the full month's news to you this evening, but its not going to happen, but for those of you in Ireland right now I must tell you about a lovely Bards In The Woods even tomorrow, Sunday 12th October, at 2 pm.

This is at Kilronan Woods, by the beautiful Lough Meelagh, meet at the surreal fairy house style Gate House

and we will go to the 'View Of The World' peninsula

with autumn colour trees and a beautiful sunny day forecasted. 2 pm meet up.

click here for the event page for information and some pics

I will aim to get the rest of the new news to you during next week.

In this news will be ...

Last Bards In The Woods meet up this month, this year
Claire and John at Mind, Body, Spirit and Yoga
Concert Window concert online this month
Woodford House Concert with Karin Leitner
USA tour 2015 latest
Retreats and Tours In Ireland latest, with lots of info for coming to Ireland for a wonderful inspiring and fun time.
Ogma's Tale Of The Trees latest

Will be back with you soon.

I look forward to meeting those of you at Bards In The Woods tomorrow :-)

Our Equinox 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 19:34:00 +0100

Its the last day of September so I had better post what happened during our Equinox Events over the weekend of 20th and 21st September.

Not all of these pics in this post are mine, like the beautiful one above, so I will look up who they are linked to shortly and let you know.

Claire Roche and I performed together at Spirit Of Folk at Noon on the Saturday then in the smoking area, of all places, in the Fincourt Hotel that evening. Claire had to be home that evening so on the Sunday I guided a Poetree Walk at 10 am in Loughcrew Gardens and at 2 pm at Mullaghdreen Forest about 5 km away from Loughcrew.

Ok, here is how it all went

Spirit Of Folk, I arrived about 11:40 am and was to perform at Noon, ouch !!!

Claire was going to be late due to some personal affairs she had to attend to. Arrived through the 'trades peoples' entrance but security folks were not helpful or informative so I gatecrashed everything and everyone to be able to get to performance on time.

Being a Noon start, we had been moved from 5 pm, I expected hardly anyone to be there, but at 11:50 the Cairn venue was packed !!!

Here's what it looks like inside ...

I started on a random story as I fumbled in the dark for my props, then dead on Noon I went into a new work, the opening of Tales From The Tree Labyrinth, the third of my trilogy. This is 'Another Creation Story'.

I was about 10 minutes into this, as it is about 15 mins, then Claire arrived and went straight into the harp voice bits at the end, and it sounded great.

Our set list for this was

Another Creation Story
Gabhain Molta Bhride
When You Become A Tree
Quirt The Apple, almost full version
Coll The Hazel
Symbolic
Ruis The Elder
Sleeping Awake

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to set up a CD and merchandise selling table, and were not given a reason. Disappointing as we needed a way to cover our expenses. Last time here there was a lovely merch table for all of the storytellers and poets.

After our performance there was plenty of time to explore the Spirit Of Folk Festival.

We met up with some folks who were here from the USA and had specially came to see us, as had a bunch of people in the audience. I think we helped Spirit Of Folk get some people in. Anyway, here's who turned up for us :-)

Embarrassingly, as I write this I forget their names.

Claire and I shared lunch with them. Spirit Of Folk vendors are generally very good with very fair pricing. I personally enjoy the falafel wraps there, some vendor as last time. They are huge and tasty.

Claire had to return to Dublin then so I hung out with our friends there for awhile. They reminded me that last time they were here they were on a tour with bard, Marc Gunn, and I was the tour guide.

They also told me the highlight of the tour for them was a visit to the Augha Kille Maude mummers in Fermanagh. Just as they were telling me this, who would appear but ...

Jim Ledwith !!! The Captain of the Aughe Kille Maude Mummer's troupe, just arriving at Spirit Of Folk.

One of those 'how did that happen' co-incidences :-)

That was a terrific meeting.

After then we all split up to do our own thing, when I solved a mystery that had bugged me. When I had opened the car to put some stuff away I got a waft of rotten smoke mackerel, and was quite embarrased as I had cleaned the car out thoroughly a few days before.

It was not mackerel but a waft of this going on ....

This is a traditional way of extracting copper going on there. What a smell !!!

This blog would go on and on if I posted all I did and looked at there, and listened to, but here are a few of the huge sculptures

and this one of the Salmon Of Knowledge that was to be set on fire at midnight

Met up with several friends, many of them doing things at the Spirit Of Folk Festival, but pics would go on for ages, but I must feature some people in a very rare pose of not doing anything other than chilling out and taking time out to really enjoy themselves. Deirdre Wadding and Roachey Man :-)

I did not mention what a beautiful warm sunny afternoon it was on the Saturday of the Spirit Of Folk Festival. This festival has so far always chosen fantastic weather days.

Before I left for Oldcastle, with some regret, I had to visit the Falconry area and of all the birds watched the Peregrine Falcon the most.

Not sure why, but we do have a regular Peregrine Falcon visitor here at Carrowcrory who seems to help keep vermin down and away. When the falcon arrives the rest of the twittering bird population goes very silent.

I would love to show more of Spirit Of Folk, while I was there, but I must move on to our evening in Oldcastle at the Fincourt Hotel

Claire and I were a bit nervous of this one because the gig had been moved from the Old Cinema to the Hotel Bar. What we do, especially Claire Roche's work, just does not work in bars or at festivals.

There we were doing one of each in one day !!!

The Cairn at Spirit Of Folk festival did work very well, though.

This time, when we arrived a hen party was about to get into full swing !!!

The hotel staff were not going to butt in as they were to make a lot more money from a hen party presence than our wee stories, songs and poetry session.

Excellent poet Kyrie Murray was on before us and started up,

but the noise drowned him. I looked at their smoking area, a lovely area, perfect for what we do, and quiet too, but it was getting cold and I did not think it would suit the audience.

Claire arrived, also looked at the smoking area, and insisted we used it or no show!
So, we all moved into the area, and all of the bodies present soon warmed it up.

When Claire and I got going ...

Extra people arrived, it got quite busy, and the audience were amazingly responsive. Some of them had also come over from the USA both for the Loughcrew Festival and some to see us as I had introduced this event to them through our channels.

Claire Roche was in top form, sang and performed very well

Here am I muddling with my props for Quirt The Apple as we perform it

Despite our concerns at the start this ended up being one of the best, and very responsive, audiences we had ever performed to.

Our drawback was again not have somewhere for our merch and stuff. Would we have anough change in the pocket to pay the petrol home? - we started thinking. Performing is a begging career really :-)

Our set list at Fincourt was ...

Sitting In A Green Field
Luis The Rowan
Dedication
Coll The Hazel
Gabhain Molta Bhride
Quirt The Apple, short version
Star Of The County Down
Ioho The Yew, shortened version

After what was a wonderful day, really, it was a dash off to the provided B&B, which turned out to be an incredible treat. I di not take pics, which is strange for me, but it was Hounslow House near Fore.

Grainne, who runs this, is one of the best B&B host I have ever met. The rooms, food, garden, service and kindness were all very 5 star.

Unfortunately, Claire had to be back in Dublin so she misssed this.

Sunday

As soon I was asleep it seemed like Treasa, the leader of a lot of the events around here, was waking me up to get to Loughcrew Cairn T on Slieve na Cailleach Beara.

Yes, that's it, with the folks flying the Donegal GAA flags on top.

Mobile phone calls - the parking spaces are full, parking spaces blocked !!! Just after 5:20 am !!!

We we told of a 'secret' road route and 'secret' parking place. They were good and we were up there waiting for the sun by 6:00 am :-)

and we were not the only ones ...

On the way there Treasa said 'oh, you're West'

There's a story with that, but I've got to get this blog done, so another time :-)

So here I am, The West, soon to call on the water spirits ...

and the people gathered around ...

and the sun rose, through these pics ...

It should have hit the Cairn T rear stone like this

Here's a graphic of the markings ...

but that band of cloud at the start delayed it a bit, but I heard all of these people got a peek

We posed for the press and got into the papers ...

Time to go down the hill, have breakfast and be ready for Poetree Walk at 10 am.

Who on earth come out for a Poetree Walk at 10 am in a September Equinox Morning after getting up at 4 am to get to a sunrise?

Well, here's some of them ...

26 people turned up, and they paid to do this too, for extra festival funds for next year. It set me off on ideas for Bards In The Woods which does need a funding too.

Where we were was Loughcre House Gardens on a beautiful warm sunny Sunday morning.
Loughcrew Gardens, mainly a garden of lines of ancient Yews

Sculptures ...

Hidey holes for creatures ...

Alice In Wonderland features

places where Bards can recite by water features ....

Well, this pic shows the water more,

including the gazebo where Treasa Kerrigan took many of us through a guided meditation themed on Trees

After an hour or so of that, people really did want to get back to somewhere for a nap, so it was farewell.

However, it was really only little time for me to get set up for the second Poetree Walk of the day at Maghereen Forest, probably spelled this wrong but I have to get this blog posted right now. Will check later.

2 pm there, a forest I have not been too, only about 5 km from Loughcrew House, but with the small roads to get to it, wrong turnings are likely. Well I made some. Signposting is thin.

I will write a separate blog about this forest on Bards In The Woods

Most people seem to come here for the mountain biking, whole families with mountain bikes, but very few walkers. The trackway here is wide and well gravelled and stretches for many km.

I had nobody here for Bards In The Woods, so went off to explore myself.

Main interest was the Native Woodland area

Extremely disspointing, and I will explain why in a Bards In The Woods blog on this forest. Great place for blackberry picking, but not for native trees.

I ended up walking about 7km of the trails here.

Many of them are straight like this ...

I climbed up to the Cairn remains above the forest.

Great views and hot sun at the time. Recommended as a good picnic spot, and so it is :-)

I will talk more in a later blog, but I will close this now.

This forest will probably not enter Bards In The Woods in future, but it is an important forest for the local people as this is really all they have. Forests are scarce in this area.

I have heard since that this Beech forest plantation was the first Public Forest crop grown after Ireland became Independent, became a Republic, and before they switched to Spruce plantations.

But to think of the Equinox Weekend I and we enjoyed. It was really very complete

... and my petrol was just enough to get me home too.

Really, I loved it all, especially how cacooned challenges broke open into special butterfly moments.

Ending September News

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 23:14:00 +0100

Hello everyone.

I have been slow with blogging this past week, but what a wonderful series of Equinox events last week. I will still write them up early next week.

As seems to be flow these days, the first thing coming up after sending this news is Bards In The Woods, including tomorrow, Sunday, 28th September at 2 pm.

Five more Bards In The Woods this year

Tomorrow afternoon, meeting at 2pm, we are going where the Megalithic meets the Trees and where we indulge in mystery. Bards In The Woods are still FREE events this year. Memberships will start up next year.

Through this time enjoy the words, the colour changes, the sharing of identifications, foraging, stories, tree hugs and shared picnic. Current forecast for tomorrow is, 17C, cloudy, and there may be a shower or two late afternoon. Good idea to dress for all weathers.

click here for the Facebook Page for this event,
which includes a custom Google Map link

Other Bards In The Woods this year, through October Sundays
to enjoy the changing autumn fall colours ...

Derrycarne, Co. Leitrim, nr. Dromod
Lough Key Forest, Co. Roscommon, nr. Boyle
Kilronan, World View Peninsula, Co. Roscommon,
Hazelwood, Co. Sligo, Samhain Special

click here for info on the October meet ups

Carrowcrory Retreats 2015

I say retreats, but this also includes slow quality tours in Ireland that spend at least an afternoon, or a day, or a couple of days, with us at Carrowcrory Cottage.

To remind you, around us we have ...

Céis Coarran Caves, now an easier walk and full of tales
Toomour Well Of Vision, also strangely named Kingstone
Carrowkeel Cairns
Fox's Den Pub, home of local White Hag ales
... and good lunches to order too.
Carrowcrory Tree Labyrinth
for mindfulness, visualization, herbs, blessings, wishes
Carrowcrory Thatched Cottage, restored
... with harps, songs, stories, poetry and scones

Opening Spring next year is Lisserlough Retreat Accommodation

For those which to stay around here 3 nights or more.

Maria Duigan, who is setting this up, will be enjoyed by everyone. She has quite a passion for the interests that people come here to explore.

Initially, there are 4 rooms en suite and 4 rooms shared bathroom plus a group meeting room. I gather this will be expanded, soon, to be 9 rooms, all en suite and a larger meeting room. Very quiet beautiful garden and mature native trees.

Special 2015 packages ...
3 days of dinner, bed and breakfast plus activities
starting at €280-€360-£220 per person
and much less if you provide your own transport

I have new brochures and video introduction to produce on all of this
but for now you can look as some basic info with links.

click here for Carrowcrory Retreats details

Also limited Barter Retreats - No Fee !!!

5 days/nights full board at Carrowcrory Cottage
in exchange for 3 days work on Labyrinth/Cottage/Studio
and 2 full days of local touring

Ogma's Tale Of The Trees &
Bathing With The Fae's Breath

It will soon by my serious writing and recording season again,
November, December, January, February.

Final editing of both book and music albums of Ogma's Tales should be completed now fairly quickly, and soon followed by the Bathing In The Fae's Breath book, the second of the trilogy.

So, here's looking forward to meeting up with some of you during the rest of this season's Bards In The Woods, and more of you that travel here and even stay here on Carrowcrory Retreats.

Claire Roche & Woodland Bard through Equinox

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 16:05:00 +0100

Both Claire Roche and I, John aka Woodland Bard, enjoyed several fun events over the past Equinox weekend of 20th and 21st September.

I will write up a blog or two about these events when I can, but for now here is what they were ...

Spirit Of Folk Festival - Saturday

One of my favourite festivals in Ireland. Lovely location and facilities, extremely well run, strong warm community feel.

Claire and I opened up the activities in The Cairn at High Noon ... until about 12:45

Of course, we are only a crumb of the activities of this weekend festival with its main stage, woodland stage, soul field, bush crafts area, food, guided tours to local sites, and more.

click here for a PDF of the full programme

facebook page

and check out the Google Map below, either zoom out or click for larger version

Please click and view Spirit Of Folk Festival in a larger map or zoom in to see the site

Loughcrew Equinox Festival - Fincourt Hotel Lounge

Claire and I performed here for an hour from 9pm. The Fincourt Hotel is in Oldcastle town near Loughcrew. It was a terrific audience and I look forward to telling you more in the blog.

click here for an event page with the full programme of the festival

facebook page

and check out the Google Map below, either zoom out or click for larger version

View Loughcrew Equinox Festival in a larger map to see all of the performance sites
or zoom out.

Loughcrew Equinox Festival - Poetree Walk

At sunrise Sunday morning, just after 6 am, at Cairn T, Carnbane East, there was Equinox celebrations,

rituals and people in and out of the cairn.

Then its breakfast,

and at 10 am, off we enjoyed Poetree Walk and guided meditation around the Loughcrew Gardens, in the warm sun.

click here for an event page with the full programme of the festival

facebook page

Bards In The Woods - Mullaghmeen Forest

Sunday afternoon, 2 pm start, meet at the Forest Car Park.

Usual Bards In The Woods, leisurely forest bathing, identification sharing, a little foraging, sharing of words, poems and stories, and shared picnic. - but nobody actually turned up for this.

but I did have a great adventure here and a blof will be following soon.

click here for event page info

check our this Google Map too ...

View Mullaghmeen, Co. Westmeath in a larger map

Claire and I enjoyed meeting some of you at these Equinox weekend events.

Between Trees and Water - mid September News

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Sep 2014 21:46:00 +0100

Hello everyone

Continuous glorious weather in Ireland this September

Here is about some woodland, beach and river adventures

and an introduction to Equinox Weekend next weekend.

we are returning to Milltown Wood for Bards In The Woods

today, Sunday 14th September, 3 pm this afternoon

please click here for additional info

Its looking exceptional for Bards In The Woods here this time

at 3 pm at Milltown Woods, Co. Leitrim, just north west of Manorhamilton .

Sunny, dry, 19C, is the forecast.

No fee !!! Just bring something for shared picnic,

and some favourite words to share.

Pics, maps, info, RSVP are all here ...

I rate this as one of the Shinrin Yoku place of Ireland?
A perfect place for Forest Bathing - Boladh na Síoga.

To get here yourself ...

Its best to click to see the larger map, or zoom out one click
as this frame image does not actually show the location

View Milltown, Lurganboy, Co. Leitrim in a larger map

When I arrived, on this visit, nobody was here ...

click here for a blog post of our magical visit here October last year

Autumn Equinox 2014

I will be sending a detailed newsletter about this next week.

Claire Roche and I will be in The Cairn, Spirit Of Folk Festival
opening at Noon on the Saturday 20th September

8pm that evening in concert at the Harcourt Hotel Lounge, Oldcastle
as part of the Loughcrew Festival there.

10 am on the Sunday morning, 21st September
Poetree Walk, Loughcrew Gardens or Millhouse, depending on weather.
Odd time? Well its after the Loughcrew Equinox Sunrise on Cairn T's art stones
and after breakfast

2pm, Bards In The Woods at Mullaghmeen Forest near Castlepollard.

As I say, more details in a special newsletter next week
or keep up to date, somewhat, by visiting my pages

click here for Woodland Bard Pages, click Happenings

For International Friends

Claire Roche and I on tour in USA,

Putting a tour schedule together for between
25th March and 22nd April in states
CA, OR, WA, ID
please email and message back your hosting interest
for Claire Roche and myself.
"Bathing In The Fae's Breath" will be the theme.
house concerts, community theaters, art centres

Vacation Retreats?

During 2015 Tree, Water and Fae lore will feature strong in Vacation Retreats, showing how this lore relates to the changing seasons landscape around us and how personal longings can be fulfilled.

Lots of visualization, creative writing and journaling, good local food, local crafted beverages, and merriment

Again there is some intro info of this on my Woodland Bard Pages

Click here for Woodland Bard Pages - click Retreats

Finally

I am sure you will enjoy this recent Blog Post.

I visited Old Head, Co. Mayo twice during the past week.

Last Sunday for Bards In The Woods
and last Wednesday Claire treated me to a picnic adventure
for a birthday treat ... and the weather was superb !!!

We also went on a local Holy Well Hunt around there,
but that's for another blog.

For one or two future retreats I would like to recommend 3 nights around here.

I had postponed coming to Old Head, Co. Mayo, as a Bards In The Woods destination for a couple of years. With an outstanding warm and sunny weather forecast for September I decided this was the place to go at last.

So this time I visited twice in a week. Through the second visit tide was almost fully out, and this is what it was like. Even the lifeboat was grounded

and if you climb into the woodland the scenes are like this

and then comes the stile,

a kind of exit onto the wild shore

and then it was picnic time

After here we went on a cliff walk, local Holy Well hunt and beautiful sunsets.
A later blog will reveal those

but for now click to read the full blog and pics of this adventure

Thank you again for wading through this lot.

More news to reveal next week

Claire and I truly appreciate your continued support
We look forward to meeting up with you when we can

Bards, Woods, Beach, Ireland Retreats, early Sept News

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 5 Sep 2014 18:41:00 +0100

Hello everyone , a lot of things we are arranging, and I will try to get in what I can during this bulletin.

7th September, Sunday,
Bards In The Woods and On The Beach

This is happening just this coming Sunday due to exceptional September weather forecast.

Sunday, 7th September, 2014, sunny, clear, 18C, dry,
at Old Head Beach, west of Westport, in Co. Mayo

At Old Head Wood is an ancient Native Oak Wood that connects with the beach.

Here is a view of it, in the distance, from the Old Head beach.

There is a signed entrance on the beach

and this is a photo taken inside this old wood

The meet up time is a bit earlier, 2:00 pm, to take advantage of some of the low tide.

It is High Tide at 5:13 pm, so we get to see a bit more of the beach that is largely covered at High Tide. Low tide is 11:33 am.

There is also a wonderful Ice Cream Parlour there with terrific home made ice cream

Meet on the beach in front of the main car park,
the beach benches shown in the top photo here.

2 pm !!! - Sunday :-)

Here is a custom Google Map to help you find us
indicating where to park, where to meet, where to walk to the woods.

View Old Head, Co. Mayo in a larger map

Also click here for the Facebook Event Page of this event

14th September, Sunday
Bards In The Woods,
Milltown Wood, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim

Very relaxing bubbling riverside walk woods.
click here for the Facebook Event Page of this event

15th September, Monday
Live Concert Online Worldwide

Claire and I resuming this for the fall and winter season
I will send a later newsletter to outline this more

20th and 21st September,
Saturday and Sunday
Equinox Weekend
at Meath and Westmeath.

At Noon on 20th September, the Saturday
we open up the events at The Cairn at Sprit Of Folk Festival
at Dunderry House gardens. Claire and I perform from Noon.

click here for the Spirit Of Folk web site for some details

Then for 8 pm, Claire Roche and I will be in Oldcastle, Co. Westmeath
performing at the Fincourt Lounge in the town

click here for the web page of the Oldcastle Equinox Festival

21st September, Sunday,

after the Loughcrew Sunride ceremonies

There will be breakfast and

10 am, Poetree Walk in Loughcrew Gardens

by myself and others. If the weather is bad this will be within the Millhouse.

2 pm is a Bards In The Woods

at Mullaghmeen Forest outside Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath,

to catch the colour changes.

Book Out For Equinox?

I am rushing to get a small book out in time for the Equinox Events

This will be called Tales Of The Trees

but will not be the full content of Ogma's Tale Of The Trees

but will also have content from other writings of mine

All people waiting for Ogma's Tale Of The Trees hard copies

and/or the CDs will get free copies sent to them,

An e-book version will be sent to the others asap.

This is in addition to your original order :-)

28th September, Sunday
Bard In The Woods at Deerpark

A wonderful place of a fascinating court cairn too and a viewpoint of may ancient sitees. I will explain more in a newsletter later this month.

October 2014?

More Bards In The Woods, the last of this season, to capture the changing colours,#

Derrycarne, Co. Leitrim

Lough Key Forest, Co. Roscommon,

Kilronan Forest, Co. Roscommon

finishing off with a special Samhain Event

Hazelwood, Co. Sligo

There will also be 2 or 3 Live Concerts Online

USA TOUR 2015?

Trying to put a tour schedule together for between

25th March and 22nd April in states

CA, OR, WA, ID

please email and message back your hosting interest

for Claire Roche and myself.

"Bathing In The Fae's Breath" will be the theme.
house concerts, community theaters, art centres

Also in 2015

13th March, Claire Roche at the National Concert Hall

W.B. Yeats 150th year (from birth)

so lots of Sligo events. More news soon.

Vacation Retreats?

During 2015 Tree, Water and Fae lore will feature strong in Vacation Retreats, showing how this lore relates to the changing seasons landscape around us and how personal longings can be fulfilled.

Lots of visualization, creative writing and journaling, good local food, local crafted beverages, and merriment

We also have a new Retreat Accommodation owner we are starting to work with in 2015. Beautiful place with mature native trees.

More will be revealed in later newsletters ... :-)

Thank you for wading through this lot.

More news to reveal more later in the month.

Many thanks for your continued interest and support.
Claire and I truly appreciate this and talk about this often.
We look forward to meeting up with you when we can

Our Second Heritage Week Event

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 19:05:00 +0100

Hello Everyone

I have not completed August News yet. I'll make it September New instead, next week.

For now, this is the second weekend of National Heritage Week in Ireland.

A reminder of our second event, tomorrow.

Picnic at Hugh's Well and Sweat House

From time to time, groups of us have enjoyed picnics here at this delightful picnic spot with a beautiful view over Lough Allen, Co. Leitrim.

This is happening tomorrow at 3 pm, being the Sunday afternoon of 31st August 2015

Again, this is not a walking event but a relaxing event

We meet up at the picnic spot, which has a small car park. If the car park fills there are other roadside parking options.

We will explore the ancient sweat house by here in a beautiful bubbling stream location,

and explore the iron reach holy well

surrounded by old mature holly trees.

Again, here we share our favourite poems, stories and share a picnic.

The current long range forecast as I write this is a comfortable 18C, cloudy, sunny spells, with a chance of a light shower or two later in the afternoon, so be on time here if you can and we will probably picnic first..

click here to see the Events Page for this St. Hugh's Sweat House and Holy Well meet up

Here's a Google Map to help you find out location too ...

View Hugh's Well and Sweat House in a larger map

Looking forward to meeting up with some of you at these 2 events

More News of More Events Soon

Looking forward to sending you more news soon about upcoming events

07th September - 3 pm Bards In The Woods, Killeen Forest, Cavan
14th September - 3 pm Bards In The Woods, Milltown, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim
17th September - Concert Window live concert online
20th September - Opening noon, Spirit Of Folk Festival cairn
20th September - 8 pm Fincourt Lounge, Oldcastle, Co. Westmeath
21st September - 10 am Equinox Poetree Walk, Loughcrew Gardens
21st September - 2 pm Bards In The Woods, Mullaghmeen, Co. Westmeath
28th September - 2 pm Bards In The Woods, Deerpark, Sligo
05th October - 2 pm Bards In The Woods, Derrycarne, Co. Leitrim
08th October - Concert Window live concert online
12th October - 2 pm Bards In The Woods, Lough Key, Co. Roscommon
19th October - 2 pm Bards In The Woods, Kilronan, Co. Roscommon
22nd October - Concert Window live concert online
26th October - 2 pm Samhain Bards In The Woods, Hazelwood, Co. Sligo

on into 2015

13th March - National Concert Hall Dublin
25th March until 22nd April USA tour, CA, OR, ID, states
13th June, Yeats Day 150th year celebration, TBA
13th August until 22nd August - Bathing In The Fae's Breath retreat tour

Bards In The Woods Events and Concert Specials through the year
dedicated to W.B. Yeats 150th year since his birth.

Our Heritage Week Events

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 23 Aug 2014 22:45:00 +0100

Hello Everyone

I was hoping to get a full August News out to you, but its is not completely written up for you yet.

In this upcoming news is information on upcoming Claire Roche and Woodland Bard concerts in September, Bards In The Woods events for the rest of this month and through September, Concert Window live online concerts we will resume soon from September. Our USA tour through late March and early April next year and retreat tours we are hosting in Ireland in 2015.

However, this weekend in the start of National Heritage Week in Ireland.

It started today with a huge drumming launch at the Hill Of Tara. There are over 1600 events listed around the country, most of them FREE of charge, and we are hosts for 2 of them. This is the news I wish to get to you now.

Both events are Sunday Bards In The Woods events, but different to our usual woodland events,

Isle Of Innisfree

No, we are not going onto the island, but at the point closest to it on the mainland.

This is happening tomorrow, 3 pm on a Sunday afternoon, 24th August, this 2015

This is listed wrong on the Heritage Week website, despite requests to correct it. They have us listed for Monday 3 pm so I hope we do not get angry phone calls about that.

This is not a walking event but a relaxing event.

We meet up at the Isle Of Innisfree car park, opposite the toilets there, head west a little way along the Sligo Way route, then down a pathway, to the right, to the shore, 5 to 10 minutes from the car park.

Here's a pic from Google Street View of where we park

and other Street View of where we climb over the stile to go on the path to our picnic spot

and this Street View is at the jetty looking to the island and the spur of land where we will picnic etc.

Here there is a lovely picnic spot where we share our favourite poems, stories, songs, and shared picnic.

Another view from this picnic spot

It was a lovely warm sunny day last year, for this, but this year the forecast is a cooler 14C and chance of a light shower or two. If it is too wet for us, we will go to nearby Dooney Rock Forest where the trees will shelter us.

Anyone who has shared Bards In The Woods with us knows a good craic happens in all weathers :-)

click here to see the Events Page for this Isle Of Innisfree meet up

Hugh's Well and Sweat House

From time to time, groups of us have enjoyed picnics here at this delightful picnic spot with a beautiful view over Lough Allen, Co. Leitrim.

This is happening at 3 pm on the Sunday afternoon of 31st August 2015

This is the last day of Heritage Week, which is, of course, for 9 days, and it is listed correctly on the Heritage Week website.

Again, not a walking event but a relaxing event

and explore the iron reach holy well

surrounded by old mature holly trees.

Again, here we share our favourite poems, stories and share a picnic.

The current long range forecast as I write this is a comfortable 18C, sunny, with a change of a light shower or two.

click here to see the Events Page for this St. Hugh's Sweat House and Holy Well meet up

More about National Heritage Week 2014?

click here for their web site and full listings around Ireland.

Looking forward to meeting up with some of you at these 2 events

More News Soon

Looking forward to sending you more news soon about what Claire Roche, Woodland Bard, Bards In The Woods Carrowcrory Cottage, and Bathing In The Fae's Breath retreats are up to in September, through the winter and through 2015.

Tree Of Life - Presence Of Love

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 16:05:00 +0100

The celebrant at my son and new daughter in-law's wedding started off offering that we share the union of Avalon and Holly in the presence of God, Goddess, or whatever you choose to call the Presence Of Love.

I have always been uncomfortable with both the God and Goddess words, and even 'Great Spirit', but this celebrant's words reminded me how I feel the 'Presence Of Love' is the core that forever builds, nourishes and constantly transforms our Tree Of Life.

Carrowkeel at Lughnasadh 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 5 Aug 2014 20:20:00 +0100

It was quite a clear day, July 31st

Both the pyramid shape of The Reek, Croagh Patrick, and the dome shape of
Nephin could be seen, though not clearly in that pic. Also looking over past
Ben Bulben, Slieve League and parts of SW Donegal were coming into view too,
but perhaps not clear on this pic.

I thought this would be a regular Cairn G and Cairn K visit,
but turned out to be a lot more adventure during this visit.

Cairn G, is very familiar to many people due to it's lightbox.

Sad to see a recent epidemic of graffiti here.

and it is now like this on many of the stones in this cairn.

Treasa, who was with me, was not highly impressed with this cairn, compared to where she has visited before, and was looking forward to visiting more to find the gems here..

Several people visiting Cairn G actually find this to be a bit of a cozy place.
Me? Well I'm interested in here due to its amazing age, and mystery of purpose,
but really not much more.

I always like to take this pic from the back looking out through this split stone though.

Next, we headed up to Cairn K near the top of this hill here, passing and briefly stopping at the remains of cairns, H,I,J on the way.

No outside pics of this cairn, as I have taken several during many visits here.

Within Cairn K, we met drum workshop and drum healer Aaron of Slapping Skins in Wales. We had met him at Céis Coarran the day before. He joined us with our adventures for the rest of the afternoon.

Four interesting features within Cairn K are the fine example of corbelling construction that is just not seen anywhere else in Ireland. Even Newgrange does not match this. There are four light boxes here, though all of them were blocked in a long time ago.

There is this mysterious triangle stone aligned with The Reek, below one of the closed in light boxes.

and the passage out has a mystery to it also.

When Aaron came out

and Treasa too.

I thought that was the end of our Carrowkeel adventure.

Far from it!

Next stop was to descend into Pollnagollum, a large pigeon hole cave that I have not visited for about 10 years.

There is a very steep track down to this cave,
and stepping into the cave is even steeper.

Goll, part of the word, Pollnagollum, fascinates me as it seems to come from an ancient Ireland term relating to a hole where the light disappears into darkness. Various myth figures called Goll, seem to be people who had lost an eye.

Anyway, back to our adventure, I chickened out going completely into this cave due to fear of breaking my iPad that I was carrying to record stuff, and not trusting leaving stuff, plus I had a muscle problem with a leg.

Here is a pic from inside this Pollnagollum cavetaken by Treasa that includes Aaron.

Getting out of that place is certainly trickier than getting into it. This is not a place I would take a group. Venture there at your own risk folks :-)

From there we trekked over to see the ancient village remains, but a light drizzle made visibility of that blurry. On the way there did take picks of the Rocking Stone, but that does not rock any more as all of the 'rockers' have eventually crushed the pebble that held up this big stone.

Heather was just about making an appearance here.

Down from these cairns I explained why cairns L, M, C and D were not really good ideas to visit, but these two enthusiasts, with me, were game to go up to Cairn E. This is a strange cairn technically called. 'Trapezoidal Cairn' that seems to be a combo of passage cairn and court cairn in one.

This passage area is open, as the cairn was gone long ago.

The one thing certain for us. On arrival here was swarms of attacking midges.
Aaron was having a problem with them here, for one.

I dashed to the back of this odd ciarn to get some pics of the court end.

There was no enthusiasm to carry on to Cairn F, in the short distance from here.

A drive down to the lower car park and Aaron invited us in his camper for tea etc.

After this sojourn, the enthusiastic duo wanted to have a go at getting to Cairn B,
seen in this pic here.

This is the toughest cairn to get to, no matter how you try it. The townland it is on is known as Treanscrabbagh, translating as something like 'rough third'.

I really did not feel like ascending the ways I had done before. It seemed like approaching from the South would be easier than climbing the steep North face. Alas, that South route is full of deep undergrowth and unexpected swallow holes that indeed swallow you up. A dangerous route, don't try it,

However, it has an incredible abundance of bilberries and wild raspberries :-)

Inside, this cairn has a passage but no side or end chambers.

Since I was there about 8 years ago a standing stone had been taken from the top of the cairn and mounted as a viewpoint seat inside. Today, this stone has been pushed off of its stone supports. Some force would have been needed for that. Quite some brute force would have been needed to get that big stone from the top of the cairn and into the cairn in the first place.

Entrance for going in ...

and what we see looking out now ...

Bright sun going away, we were hungry, time to go downwards and end our adventure.

One last view into the more cloudy horizon, and the Nephin dome mountain still there.

Lovely sunset that evening.

Thank you for sharing a fun adventure afternoon, Treasa

and Aaron

Céis Caves at Lunasadh 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 3 Aug 2014 19:10:00 +0100

The walk to Céis caves is local to me, just a couple of km away. Despite my deepest passions being of the trees and water springs I enjoy adventures here because it is not made by humans and has an incredible root to many mythology stories told.

I have a passion in talking of the Morrigan as a Mór na Cú, from here, because these stories take on inspiration, reminder and celebration related to our annual cycles, our seasons, our light to dark and back to light again, and perhaps helps to unclutter our meaning of life, living and being.

Of course there are battle, warrior, death and hero stories from here.
There are stories of 'don't mess with the hag or cailleach' stories.
Most famous are perhaps the birth of Cormac mac Airt,
return of Diarmuid and Grainne,
the Fianna caught up in the web of the Three Hags,
the deeds of Goll the Sidhe Blacksmith, and Coarran The Harper,
a multitude of pig, boar, cattle, goat, wolf, fox, otter, hare, and raven stories,
and my own favourite being the Birth Of Bhride.

Despite all that, for now this post is merely about a return to here to see how the marked walk is getting on with its development.

The mini surprise development is the encouragement of people to park their cars in Keash Village, in the car park of the White Hall.
There is more information of the caves and other sites of the area posted there now.

At the base of the Caves 3 or 4 cars can park there and, so far, there's rarely more than that. The walk from the village car park to the base is about 10 minutes.

Here is the style, but this is an old pic, as there are now all kinds of direction plus 'do this and don't do that' signs over the other side now ...

Then, over the other side, the arrows and sign posts go around the edge of the field ... which visitors pay very close attention to, of course.

There is another style over the other side of this field, well actually a set of concrete steps and wee gate, but I have lost my pics of that.

Over that gate the markers point left, and that is the easiest way to go ... but several people try to climb straight up!!! Ouch, that is a tough one.

Follow the markers and at one point they point upwards and stone steps have now been placed there.

They are not very secure, though, as some are falling away already.

Some attempt has been made at making the path wider,
once you have climbed those steps.

This is indeed much better than it was, though some parts of this newly widened path has already subsided so walking does need a lot of care still.

Good to see the nettles have been cleared from the cave entrances.
That was becoming a bit painful.

Then, of course, once you are in the giant cave scenes become like this :-)

You look out, and its always breathtaking, including seeing Lough Feenagh,
which to me often seems to take on the shape of Ireland.

Today we could not see the distant views of The Reek, Croagh Patrick,
and the dome mountain Nephin.

Its good for music here, but I like to go further back into the T junction of caves at the back for this. No pics from this day but here's an older one.

Before I talk more about the caves, I have some more pics and recent info to add ...

Sligo Walks 'officially' opened the Keash Caves walk, that they call the Keshcorran Walk, on Friday 25th July. These are Sligo Walks photographs.

A very good turnout it seems, though I find the footwear of many of these fine folk a bit suspect for this walk :-)

Here's what the signs and information board look like without people ...

The Keash Caves Carpark is the large car park in front of the White Hall to the right of this sign.

The information board is excellent, a great introduction to the mythology and walk plus a good map with instructions, and here is the Walk Map part of this sign ...

By the first stile there is parking for 3 cars, so do check that first for availability to shorten your walk before heading off to the large car park in Keash.

Click here, also, for the Sligo Walks Web Page but there are currently two errors.

First, the map on the web page is totally off, so take no notice of that, but the hiking instructions are ok.

Second error is mentioning local services are Castlebaldwin.

Local services are the very local Keash Village with shop and pub where you can get some decent tea, coffee and snacks and good company if you do not want an alcoholic drink.

And here is one of our walking froups outside the local Fox's Den,

including the interesting footwear for here :-)

A couple of there here having a lunch by the turf fire and talking to a local storyteller

Oh, now I'm onto local 'tourism' don't forget us. Visit us at our thatched cottage, with a visit to a local spring water Sacred Well on the way

Including storytelling followed by tree bathing in our Tree Labyrinth here

A Cúinas, talking stick session to share your inspirations of the day, so far, with home made scones, home made butter and home made jams,

and then a cottage turf fire session with Claire Roche with songs, stories and harps ...

Finishing with contributions by yourselves, and a finale duo by Claire and myself.

Before I leave this, here's a pic of our beautiful local spring well

Here's how a 'perfect day' here can work out

11:00 am Keshcorran Walk (you do yourself)

12:30 pm Lunch, rest and craic at Fox's Den

2:00 pm to Carrowcrory cottage via well

2:30 pm Tree Labyrinth time

3:30 pm Tea, Scones and Cúinas Stick shared inspirations

4:30 pm Claire Roche songs, stories, harps with friends

5:30 pm final social craic and farewells.

... and so everyone goes for their evening rest,

ready for the next day's adventures.

Ok, now a bit more about the Caves, before I leave this ...

Further along from the Giant Cave here are various cave openings, with the most interesting being the Coffey Cave and Cormac's Cave, aslo known as Plunkett's Cave. However, there are no path improvements to these. If anything they are getting worse and are potential ankle breakers - yet these places are worth a visit.

Actually, I would say for Cormac's Cave make that a separate expedition for now and approach that from the other side of the caves.

Coffey's is worth the effort though. From here there are stories of Goll, some say Lon, the one eyed three armed Sidhe Blacksmith and the various swords he made, often for women. Grainne's sword that she used to cut off Fomori Dreacon's head and legs off with one, which set off a bunch of skull and crossbones stories that have taken different forms over 5000 years, I would think.

This is a very feminine image cave through its shapes and symbolism.
Pity I have lost a few of the inner photos that emphasis this,
but I will end this blog with a couple I have, and a video clip
that includes a few shots in sequence at one point.

This one permission of Sacred Sites Of Ireland

and now the video clip that includes several photos of these cave in sequence,
from about 1 minute 5 secs to 1 minute 10 secs, that I have lost.

... and I will write up about Carrowkeel, next blog, which we went to :-)

Hill Of Tara - Please Help Us Help The Trees

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 18:24:00 +0100

I was writing an explanation blog, but I am not finding the time to complete it.
So here's an announcement with pics instead. I hope you can assist us ...

There are a pair of hawthorn trees in distress at Hill Of Tara due to being covered in rubbish by visitors and locals alike.

We are meeting for an Event to clear the trees to try and save them,
as well as have a social craic with performances and picnic.

Meet Up Time is 3:00 pm, tomorrow, Sunday, at the twin Hawthorn Trees,

seen from the popular Stone Of Destiny on Cormac's Court.

please click here for the event page and say you are coming along.

Here's a bit more about the problem ...

Visitors have been misguided about the traditions of these hawthorn trees,
the Fairy Trees. They have been told that tying personal items to the trees
will grant them wishes or healing. This is based on an old custom of tying
prayer rags to trees at Holy Wells.

The original tradition was to attach a piece of biodegradable material with prayer and healing intention. As the material degraded the disease would leave and/or the prayer would be answered.

The twin hawthorns at The Hill Of Tara were healthy up until about 4 years ago. Now they are suffocating under huge amounts of plastic, hair bands, clothing, locks, etc..

More serious is the copper poisoning from the coins that are being hammered into them through a totally misguided interpretation of a tradition. Even worse, recently, has been the attachment of strangling Love Locks.

These twin hawthorns took over as Fairy Trees after an older hawthorn tree
was almost killed off by the same problem, and is still trying to recover

PLEASE come and help us to free these trees of the rubbish tomorrow,
Sunday 27th July 3pm. Please bring plastic bags and a scissors.

Also learn more about how to be with these trees with a healing and living prayer tradition that does no harm and could even benefit the tree.

Also, please let everyone you know in Ireland know about this.

There is an Invite Friends button if you click here too.

Lets Free These Trees to be as natural and responsive as this one, also at Tara ...

I hope you can join us tomorrow at the Hill Of Tara, Sunday, 27th July 3 pm

Meet us by the trees. We will not be in the car park waiting for others
as we will want to get on with this task as soon as we arrive.

See you there soon :-)

Who Believes The Fae Are Here

from Bathing In The Fae's Breath

Who believes the fae are here
wihin this tree, do we feel love or fear.
Can they carry our prayers past the moon
to unveil our dreams very soon

Who believes that wonder,
gifts us more than plunder
believes magic is the miracle of truth
and not a potion for eternal youth

Who believes songs of love
are not blessings from above
beyond vision, beyond view
but of voices of those who watch over you

This tree is quiet, where are the fae?
A secret we will unlock today.
Nobody can tell us, nobody can speak
When a fairy ring becomes the forest we seek

When John Atkinson Grimshaw spoke a lot
through riddles and paintings of Lady of Shalott
his whimsy reminds us of his source
'Twas fae who teased him with songs of course

Reminding whitethorn are their favorite trees
So perhaps we could circle the boughs of these:
Foxgloves for thimbles, some Thyme for a treat
Bluebells for their magic and fallen logs for a seat.

If you believe in the Fae and always stay true,
They will always be present and watch over you.
So be kind to their trees
Do not strangle them please.

July News 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:42:00 +0100

Bards In The Woods at Dooney Rock

On Sunday, 20th July, 2014, at 3 pm
South East of Sligo Town, south side of Lough Gill

click here for our Google Map for this

Last time we were there it was early Spring, before the leaves were out.

I write a lot about Forest Bathing and this year I'm focused on what forests existing fit that role. I was not expecting to find the seemingly 'perfect' forest bathing forest at Dooney Rock Woods.

The trail here is a figure of 8 walk that climaxes with a climb up to the top of the Dooney Rock.

Before you feint, I have quite awful arthritis these days and I found this whole walk was very easy, very relaxing.

There are lots of wonderful viewpoint and mindfulness seats all around this walk.

Views from the top of Dooney Rock are stunning. Apparently, this is where W.B. Yeats often came with his family when he was a child. His 'Fiddler Of Dooney' is perhaps one of his most famous poems.

During our last visit it was a misty day and through this mist there is Beezie's Island.

This is a wee map of where we will go ....

On this map you can see the figure of 8 route and the spur up the rock, a wonderful picnic spot

Of course, we will share poems, stories and harp music there. Do bring your own favourite words, especially those written by yourselves, and share with us.

The we have a great craic with our shared Picnic.

Yes, please join with us there at Dooney Rock,
and bring a fiddle to play, if you wish :-)

click here to read more ...

Bards In The Woods at Rinn Dúin

This was on Sunday, 13th July, 2014, at 3 pm
This is near Lecarrow village, between Roscommon Town and Athlone
and beside Lough Ree on the River Shannon.

For almost a year, Bridget Foy, Andrew Beach and myself had been looking forward to visiting the Warren Peninsula together, that includes the remains of the Rinn Dúin castle and village and a delightful native woodland.

Despite inviting and encouraging others to join us it was just us
and my neighbour Jan who turned up for this special visit
... and a special and adventurous visit it was.

So here we are, lots of noticeboards at the start including this ...

and the start of the trail markers, immediately warning us off a Bull ...

but he was not there today :-)

To start on the Looped Walk, which as recently been changed from anti-clockwise to clockwise recently, the first signs were confusing as the blackboard pointed differently to the marked walk arrows.

We saw the next marked walk arrow ahead of us beyond the cows and calves
so we walked straight ahead.

I started looking at and playing the audio on the Every Trail app. I was listening to an audio by Richard Collins and through this and he suggested going a bit right here and visiting the medieval hospital and graveyard ... so that's what we did.

As I was pondering over 'Fratres Cruciferi' as being possibly a great name for a Biker's Club, I started to listen to more of Richard's commentary about this ... and then the audio seemed to echo.

I switched off his commentary, and still heard his voice.
There he was, talking to the others over his garden gate :-)

Richard shared lots of info about the trail with us, though I was a bit lost through his stories of some bodies where legs had been separated from the rest of torsos and buried in different places. As he shared this, to make sense of it, my mind was racing with a combination of the Grainne vs Dreacon battle legends, and my idea of 'Fratres Cruciferi' being a good Biker's Club name or metal music band name.

After our wonderful chat with Richard, we were eager to explore ...

click here to read more ...

Bards In The Woods Harp Fringe?

On Saturday, this time, 2nd August, 2014, at 3 pm
by Keadue, on the shore car park of Lough Meelagh

click here for our Google Map for this

At this time the O'Carolan Harp Festival is happening.
Unfortunately, and very strange, there are NO Public Harp Concerts at this festival.
Its mainly this kind of thing ...

So I was wondering if any harpists and singer harpists out there
could turn up and let us create a Fringe Event for the public?

At this end of Lough Meelagh there is a Crannog,
a man made community island.

Legend tells of Turlough O'Carolan trying out new tunes here
to get the reaction from a Linnet living on this Crannog.

I will send a special newsletter nearer the time of this event
but please save the date and join in with us.

We will also spend time within Knockranny Forest
and at the Megalithic Court Cairn there.

click here to read more ...

Wells, Woods & Wonders Of Glendalough

We started to gather ...

This was on Saturday, 28th June 2014, a beautiful warm, sunny summery afternoon, despite a restless weather forecast.

Rosaleen serves us an introduction to our afternoon, standing by Kevin's Well,
the wells we are about to see, some interesting stuff about them ...

Then Bethan performed some delightful tunes on her harp. Each year we hear how much further she grows and develops with her wonderful instrument.

Before we leave this well, some folks leave blessings and prayers on the Birch Tree here and I share Beith The Birch. (Thanks to Erika for the photo).

The we head off down the Green Road west,
and Marty the Cairn Terrier catches up from behind.

click here to read more ...

Solstice At FaceFest, Yes It Was!

Yes, that's what this was all about? :-)

Here's a video of what happened, before I commence the blog and photos ...

"Hey everybody, don't miss a great show this afternoon!"

and here is Claire solo, with her folk harp accompanying, through our afternoon performance

but what on earth is this lad doing off of the stage?

click here to read more ...

What Is Happening to Lassair's (Lasir's) Well?

This is how the well is today ...

and how it once was, not a very long time ago ...

This was one of my favourite Holy Wells in Ireland as it included many features that a traditional to wells but rarely found in one place. Sadly, this well, due to its recent changes, no longer makes this possible.

I will go through the components and where they are now.

Most important, perhaps, is the Ballaun Stone, which used to be positioned like this ...

The well water used to overflow out of the well, around the bottom of the bowl, and out under a bridge, that you see part of top left of this pic.

That bridge is cut in a way that is distinctly stone cut with stone tools, and seemingly a broken capstone from one of the nearby 4000 to 5000 year old cairns, and put to new use. Here is a better pic of that ...

This is all covered in now as you can see from this pic ...

Doing this has also shut off is the stream from Lough Meelagh that the Priest would have taken to the Mass Rock, that I will show you shortly. Priests always approached these mass rocks by water during Penal Times so that their footprints could not be followed.

Last time I was there it was sitting on the new stone wall of the well ready to be positioned elsewhere.

It looks like a space is being made for it, that looks ridiculous already, away from the water stream. I just hope they do not make it worse by putting it on a pedestal like a similar ballaun stone has been perched at Roundwood, Co. Wicklow.

click here to read more ...

Ogma's Tale Of The Trees

This is Ireland. We have wet days, and these are the ones I use to continue editing the music and book. Progress continues.

So, until August News, enjoy your Summer or Winter time, depending on which part of the globe you live on :-)

What Is Happening to Lassair's (Lasir's) Well?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 21:25:00 +0100

The sign for here that once was

and now this is the sign ...

This is how the well is today ...

and how it once was, not a very long time ago ...

This was one of my favourite Holy Wells in Ireland as it included many features that a traditional to wells but rarely found in one place. Sadly, this well, due to its recent changes, no longer makes this possible.

The change-around of Lassiar's (Lasir's) Well appears to be part of a local initiative to upgrade Keadue Village and nearby 'attractions' to help it win the national Tidy Towns award again. Regarding this well, I think they have gone too far.

I will go through the components and where they are now.

Most important, perhaps, is the Ballaun Stone, which used to be positioned like this ...

This is all covered in now as you can see from this pic ...

Do the people handling this well 'improvement (?)' know anything about what they are handling? As for the Ballaun Stone, this is sad.

Last time I was there it was sitting on the new stone wall of the well ready to be positioned elsewhere.

So what about the stone that goes into the Ballaun Stone?

Well that was put onto the Mass Rock, as a Cursing Stone, a long time ago.

Here's how it was ...

The carpet pieces still underneath this Mass Rock are for people to lay on who seek to be healed to be able to see clearer, mentally and spiritually. Some folks do this for backache and arthritis too.

This is how it is today ...

Surrounded by items left around the well but moved onto the Mass Rock table. If you look at a pic above you will see some of this items close to the white plaque once by the well.

Also note that the table of this Mass Rock is carved by stone tools on a stone, so this is probably part of the same ancient capstone as the covered over bridge.

As for the White Plaque celebrating the visit to Ireland by Pope John Paul, that has its own display area now ...

To put it all in perspective, maybe this pic will help ...

What I do miss are the beautiful stone steps behind the well, now gone ..

I suppose 'Health And Safety' and 'Wheelchair Access' issues caused these to go, though the current replacement path would cause wheelchairs to stick.

Also gone is the welcoming Marian figurine ...

The White Tower with the Hail Marys and Our Fathers instructions has also gone ...

The 8 pointed star circle on this white tower has now been transferred to a new sculpture ...

What on earth is that all about?

Rag trees are gone, though no specific tree was really used for some time.

The original Rag Tree was an Ash by the well, which was cut down about 15 years ago, I believe. Now the remains of that Ash has been uprooted and left there, as has the triangular stone with a cross that used to be in front of it. Here's where they are currently dumped, tree on the top left and cross stone towards top right, though quite small ...

Well that's Lassiar's (Lasir's) Well today, being sterilised for Tidy Towns.

Lets move on elsewhere around the Keadue area.

Across from the Well is the remains of the Kilronan Abbey, cemetery
and O'Carolan's Grave.

Not much has changed here except access seems to be trickier and the cemetery is not as well kept. A lot has overgrown.

The original sign to Turlough O'Carolan's Grave is still present

but this new sign set seems to give the impression that we have to jump over the wall to get to see anything.

For those of you who are not familiar with Turlough O'Carolan's grave, here it is.

This is within an enclosure the local Dermot-Rowe family,
who were patrons of O'Carolan and who themselves have
a deep ancient ancestral history of being Bards to Gaelic chieftains.

Out of the cemetery and a few metres west is the Gate House, or what we call the Fairy House

Nothing changed here other than getting its new Gate House sign.

Going east to the eastern end of Lough Meelagh we have Knockranny Forest which is popular for its signposted walks and ancient court cairn.

A lot of new signage has been put up here around the car park and through the woods. I hope the vandals keep away.

Here's Erika having some fun and transformation within the Court Cairn
within these woods.

Here's a peek at what here is like before it was overgrown ...

Picnic table area outside of the woods has been taken away
and replaced with a Bog Oak sculpture.

which is very nice, but wish picnic tables were still around this.

The picnic tables in the woods have been re-furbished

but from experience this is a mighty midge biting area, hence why the tables outside of the wood are prefered, looking over the lough, as those are usually midges free.

We do have a Bards In The Woods here first Saturday in August, 2nd August 2014, and we would like to make it a fringe to the O'Carolan Harp Festival going on the same weekend ... that has NO public harp concerts !!! - just Rebel Songs bands.

So not only bring your favourite words, stories and poems along
but also bring your harp or harper, if you have any.

Click here for the O'Carolan Bards In The Woods Event info here

The Picnic WILL be with sight of this Crannog in the Lough here ...

It is here that a Linnet on this Crannog island is said to have
reviewed and responded to Turlough O'Carolan's new compositions.
I will tell you the story when you meet with us there :-)

Again, click here for the O'Carolan Bards In The Woods Event info here

June news 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 18:55:00 +0100

FaceFest at Charleville Castle

On Summer Solstice day of Saturday, 21st June, 2014, at 4 pm

Claire Roche,and myself, John aka Woodland Bard, will be performing at
FaceFest Festival at Charleville Castle, SW of Tullamore, Co. Offaly Ireland.
We will be in the ballroom there, apparently among the set used for filming
Mary Queen of Scots.

There is no separate ticket to see us, because this is a festival.
The entire festival day to include all I will tell you about here costs a
measly €15 per person, but its not measly when considering this is all
voluntary to help get more funds in to preserve this beautiful castle.

click here for a PDF about public transport to FaceFest, with timetables

The next day I host Bards In The Woods which will be at the Charleville Forest

First, lets look at Charleville Castle with a lovely pic of the wooded entrance.

Then along the long driveway we come to the front of the castle, which is this.

as featured on just about every ghosthunting and haunted house television series, particularly in the USA.

Well it is all going to turn into this

If you would like to book your tickets right now before looking at more

click here to order your €15 tickets online now

This festival has a limit of 500 people I believe.

If you click to read more there are maps, directions, what's on and where. It would be lovely to meet you there. At present the weather forecast is looking good.

click here to read more ...

Bards At Glendalough Woods & Wells

On Saturday, 28th June, we are having quite a special Bards In The Woods Meet Up at Glendalough, focused on both the Native Tree Woods there and a couple of the Holy Wells.

This event is inspired and facilitated by members of Irish Well Hunters'. They recently uncovered an ancient well at Reefert Church Glendalough.

We will meet at the Labyrinth near the Glendalough Visitor's Centre at 2:00 pm on Saturday 28th June.

From here we will visit the well known Kevin's Well, then walk the Green Road to Reefert Church, and visit the well that was recently discovered here.

This is a similar itinerary that many people turned up for during our torrential rain meet up in March 2013 - the worst rain ever for a Bards In The Woods, yet we enjoyedone of our best turnouts. This time we meet in summer.

Of course, we will share poems, stories and harp music there. Do bring your own favourite words, especially those written by yourselves, and share with us.

The we have a great craic with our shared Picnic.

Yes, please join with us there :-)

click here to read more ...

Invocation Within The Glen

I left home during a thunderstorm and lashings of rain to arrive at the entrance of The Glen west of Sligo in warm sunshine and dry everywhere.

I was excited though, and could not wait to go in. Once in The Glen today, this was it!

And there's some folks waiting for us :-)

We made our greetings, hand shakes and hugs

I read out Robin Williamson's 'Invocation',
as it seemed we needed to call on something to unite us.

It sort of worked as we went into lively conversations as if we were long lost friends who knew each other and could not wait to share with others.

click here to read more ...

The Middle Earth Glen Experience

The Glen, below Knocknarea, west of Sligo Town is a seemingly very magical place to visit. On arrival it is a total senses aroused wonder.

Finding it, for the first time, can be a bit tricky.

A lot of people looking this up will see pics of the entrance like this ...

but those gates are gone and the hawthorns etc. have grown rampantly.

This article introduces The GlenI much more than my recent visit article. It also serves directions to The Glen through pictures and Google Map.

click here to read more ...

Bards N'The Woofs At Lough Key Forest

That's Esta, Dorothy's guide dog ... more about them later :-)

Part of today's experience was to see how the new Boyle Town to Lough Key Forest bus service was going to work out. Arriving at Lough Key Forest Park at 12:20,

With an hour and half before anyone else arrives, I wanted to see how the Camping Ground was like here now. Do click through the link to see what I discovered

At 2 pm people and dogs arrived for Bards In The Woods here.

I believe it was 12 adults and 6 dogs.

We set off and first stop, enter into the wonder of the Cedar trees

click here to read more ...

Misty Megaliths in Cavan Burren's Forest

There was just no knowing how this day was going to be

There had been a surprising amount of interest in this event, which I thought would be one of our events of the year, especially for curiosity value. Weather forescast was very yo-yo. On arrival a mist was falling.

Well here we are, and the new plaque tells us we are at 'Cavan Burren Park'

So we step inside, and I'm drawn straight to the dolmen in a spaceship

a close up of this ...

When 19 adults and 4 or 5 dogs had arrived, we set off up the hill into the mist

click here to read more ...

A Stop Of At St. Hugh's

On the way home from Cavan Burren it's quite a tradition for me to
stop off at St. Hugh's, Leitrim, quite close to Drumshambo just off of the Dowra to Drumshambo road.

Here we can visit St. Hugh's Well

and St. Hugh's Sweathouse

Approaching the Sweathouse is very pretty any time of the year.

This is a grand picnic area too.

And a place to take lovely portrait pics of friends.

click here to read more ...

So, until July News, enjoy your Solstice time, no matter which part of the globe you live on :-)

Catch This Bus to Lough Key Forest

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 May 2014 14:57:00 +0100

Catch this Bus to and from Lough Key Forest Park

click here for Bards In The Woods events at Lough Key Forest

scroll down for map

During June, July and August
This shuttle Bus will run twice daily
departing Boyle from the Crescent
at 12 noon and again at 5pm;

The Crescent is 5 minutes walk from the Boyle Railway Station. Taxi services in Boyle would object to the service running directly from the railway station. There' no permission for that, anyway.

Next stop Military Road at 12.10, and again later at 5:10 pm, which is handy for pick up from King House, Farmer's Market on Saturdays and connecting to the Dublin to Sligo bus services.

Bus departures from Lough Key Forest Park for Boyle
are at 12.30 and 5.30pm.

This Shuttle Bus will run 6 days a week Monday through to Saturday, not Sundays, through the months of June, July and August.

This Shuttle Bus timetable coincides very well with the railway train services to and from both Sligo and Dublin Directions.

The trains from Sligo direction and heading for Dublin
arrive at Boyle at 11:32 am and 6:32 pm

The trains from Dublin direction and heading for Sligo
arrive at Boyle at 11:25 am and 6:25 pm

For our Bards In The Woods events,
if you are not camping in Lough Key Forest Park
I suggest arrive on either 11:25 or 11:32 train
and depart on the 6:25 or 6:32 train

Shuttle bus ticket price is only €1 per adult and 50c per child.

As Una Bhan, the local tourism agency, tell us, there are over 50 business subscribers to this initiative. The Main Sponsor being – Boyle Today.com

A Brochure to accompany the Shuttle Bus initiative is in print and includes all sponsors and their location of Business while also highlighting 10 reasons to take the bus to Boyle which include:

• Visit Boyle’s magnificent 12th century Cistercian Abbey

• Explore King House a magnificently restored Georgian Mansion, interpretive
Galleries & Museum and Boyle Town library and the Boyle Civic Collection.

• Visit the home of Emmy Award winning ‘Moone Boy’ & Tony Award nominee
Hollywood Actor Chris O Dowd and take the ‘Moone Boy Trail’
and take home some Boyle Soil!

• Take the Boyle Historical Walking Trail which includes birthplace of
Maureen O’Sullivan & Margaret Cousins, Famine Memorial.

• Visit Boyle’s Model Railway, an exciting 40ft x 20ft running model railway
in a continental layout in HO scale

• Take a stroll through Boyle Farmers Market (Saturday 10am -2pm)

• Relax while your children enjoy the FREE activities in Boyle Pleasure Grounds

• Have lunch or early bird dining in any of our Restaurants/Coffee shops

• Enjoy a relaxing drink or two in any of our pubs

While in Boyle why not take a visit also to Tullyboy Pet Farm; Lough Gara Riding Stables & Country Pursuits; Drumnone Dolmen, Gaelic Chieftain and Carrowkeel Megalithic Tombs or maybe a Pampering session in Kilronan Castle!

For further information on Boyle attractions or the Boyle Lough Key Shuttle Bus,
contact Úna Bhán Tourism 071 966 3033 or e-mail unabhan@indigo.ie

Here's a Google Map
Zoom it to discover bus service, utilities and what's there.

View Lough Key Forest, Co. Roscommon in a larger map