Celtic Ways Tales

A few weeks ago, during a warm sunny spell in Ireland at the end of April it was a joy to return to the Bearra Peninsula. Some more of our tours will return there this year. The Bearra Peninsula is on the Kerry and Cork border. South of the Ring of Kerry, in my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland. It is largely unheard of because the roads are too narrow for the regular bus tours that tour the Ring Of Kerry and Dingle Peninsula instead. Our interest is a combination of following the path of the goddess Bearra legends and traditions along with visiting some of the many ancient stone circles situated in the most beautiful and most ambient of Landscapes. Uragh A   ( OS map 84 V 832 635) I rate this as being in the top five of most wonderful ancient sites to visit. I have visited here during blue sky, awesome mountain views and a background of waterfalls. On this day we were accompanied by sunny haze and mist that may have hid the usual views but did add to...

Due to my combined past experiences of hotel management and event management alongside a background of ancient wisdoms that include cosmology, astrology and shaman connections to the other world I was invited by an agent to a company that operate web sites such as angels.ie and psychics.ie to work as one of their event co-ordinators. This is an invitation that truly threw up the dual voices in my mind like those cartoon illustrations of the red forked devil on one side and the white haloed angel on the other. The folks behind angels.ie and and psychics.ie seem to have a very sound operation compared to similar operations but they all seem to fall into a tabloid culture marketing formula. This angels and psychics operation has employed people I know of as their consultants so I can see they are doing their best to achieve the best reputation they can in what can be seen as a very “low life” industry. Personally, though I have had a lifelong interest in astrology, psychic awar...

As you may well know, every Robin Williamson performance is unique, and I am writing this after yet another unique show. For those of you who wonder who Robin Williamson is, he was a founder of the Incredible String Band who enjoyed worldwide success during the late 60s and early 70s. Hit albums included 5000 Spirits, Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, Wee Tam, Big Huge and Liquid Acrobat As Regards The Air. Since the mid 70s Robin learned to play the harp which has since become his main instrument. Robin has developed an exceptional repertoire of bardic stories, musical poems and whimsical songs and he still performs some of the old Incredible String Band “hits” along with some surprise covers of songs by other writers. The venue this time was Glendalough Visitor's Centre, a modern, custom built building to present the Celtic Christianity heritage of the area. The “theatre” has great acoustics so no PA is needed at all. Glendalough itself is...

I was in the middle of finishing off new templates for my new Celtic Ways web site, that I cannot wait to launch. This work, combined with some recent emails and some dialogue with Mac Gunn of Brobdingnagian Bards, who is arriving on his first tour of Ireland shortly ..... threw me into a spin of a new idea. The Order Of Bards idea Several people email me requesting that their Ireland vacation here includes creative writing, exploration into classic and ancient Irish writers, going to harp concerts, finding out more about Irish harpers, writing poetry, sharing poetry, story telling ..... and the list is endless All wonderful, wonderful reasons for being in Ireland. This combines so well with the visits to ancient and sacred sites that can feel as if their fires and flames are being rekindled and restored when a song, poem or story is shared within a sacred site left dormant. If you have seen the "Dead Poets Society" movie which I am sure many of you have, something similar, b...

Transported back in time: While we were within the Bealtaine City of Anu during a glorious sunny day last week it was like visiting an ancient site equivalent of a Florida, Texas or California beach Spring Break. It happens a lot, when I visit ancient sites. Its like I am transported back in time and visualize all kinds of people doing all kinds of things. I often return home with these images, go online, and find that many of these images are related to written accounts. Its a wonderful resource for writing poetry, songs, an essay or just a casual blog. Thankfully, I find that most people on our tours have similar experiences and days after they return home I hear about their poems, essays, songs, paintings and crafts all inspired by their visit. The Mating Dance of the Mature and Wise: Many of our travellers are wise mature people, often proud grandparents, so the youthful boy meets girl imagery of a mating dance and fertility enhancing Bealtaine site might bring back memori...

One of our repeat travellers requested a visit to a site on the Cork and Kerry border called “The City”, below the Paps of Anu. I looked on the Ordnance survey map, no luck. I looked on the internet, no luck, except a comment on a hillwalker’s site for the walking group to meet at “The City” for a ramble along the Duhallow Way. I grabbed my Ordnance Survey map to find the Duhallow Way and noticed an “Ogham Stone” was on the route, so this is where we headed for. We arrived in Shrone village, which is quite large complete with church and school but not clearly featured on the map. Here we found a very informative sign telling us all about “The City”, but not how to get to it. There is a loop road from Shrone that meets up with the Duhallow Way. Thinking of all of the ramblers meeting and parking their cars we started to look for a place where several cars could park, and believed this could be by “The City”. We never found such a place, so asked a farmer ...