Indigenous Tradition | The heART of Ritual

The heART of Ritual

musings

Welcome to the MUSINGS room of our digital hearth.

This is a living archive – a gathering of writings, poems, stories, recipes, videos, and handcraft tutorials. Each one is woven through the rhythms of nature, the turning of the Celtic Wheel, and the elemental and archetypal movements of the Irish year. Rooted in the cosmology, indigenous festivals, folklore, myths, and seasonal customs of Ireland, these offerings speak from the old ways into the now – and are gathered here as both an honouring of those who have gone before us, and a lasting reference for those who are to come.

This collection is freely shared as an ongoing gift to the community – yet each piece is the fruit of long attention and handcraft. If you carry it onward, please do so with integrity and give proper credit to the author and source, so the lineage remains unbroken.

Go raibh maith agat.

WATCH: Grianstad an Gheimhridh ag Sí an Bhrú (Newgrange Winter Solstice 2025 live stream)

The annual Winter Solstice event at Newgrange in County Meath is going to be streamed virtually this year on December 21 and you can tune in to watch live right here. We are delighted to partner with Ireland’s Office of Public Works (OPW) to help bring the annual, magical event of the Winter Solstice at Newgrange right into your homes around the world. In a statement, Ireland’s Office of Public Works (OPW) said: "It is great that the OPW is able once more to broadcast the Win

The Bog Shaman: An Invitation to Intimacy, Wonder, and Place at the home of the Cailleach Bhéarra

On the Beara Peninsula, winter enters quietly through the bog. It always has. This is the land’s first threshold, the place that feels the shift long before the rest of the world takes notice. Winter comes on the scent of damp earth and peat, in the faint metallic clarity of cold air, in the soft resistance beneath your boots as you step onto the dark, springing ground. Before frost etches its fine geometry across stone and heather, the boglands are already turning inward. Mo

Singing the Soul Home: Keening, Wake, and the Old Irish Lament

In the hush between life and death, the Irish keening tradition once rang out with an untamed cry. A sound that split the air, carrying grief into the marrow of those who heard it, and carrying the soul of the departed into the unseen. Keening was not mere weeping. It was ritual, fierce in its necessity, a cry that acknowledged death’s arrival and accompanied the journey beyond. Caoineadh, from caoin meaning to weep or lament, was both song and wail, both word and wordless c

When the Wheel Stands Still: Death, Despair, and the Starry Kin

There comes a moment in the turning of the year when the wheel itself seems to halt, pausing in breathless stillness. Time hangs heavy. Shadows lengthen, and the breath of the land draws in upon itself. In Ireland, this moment stretches between the dark of Samhain and the first trembling light of the Winter Solstice – a season where the dead walk amongst us, and the living seek fire, food, and fellowship to keep despair at bay. The old folk knew these weeks as a haunted pause

Opening the Window: Death Customs and Soul Beliefs in Irish Tradition

In Ireland, death has never been a hidden thing. It moves through the home, the community, and the land as something to be honoured, witnessed, and spoken of. Death is not treated as an abrupt severing, but as a threshold that involves the living and the dead in a shared passage. In rural Ireland, particularly, these thresholds have traditionally been marked through a series of household rituals, communal practices, and seasonal observances that bind the fate of the soul to t

The Body of a River, The Body of a Human

The magical Esknamucky Waterfall. Photograph by Nigel Wheal A river is never still, even in its seeming quiet. Beneath its skin lies a...

Samhain and the Cailleach

Samhain, the astronomical moment of liminality, is drawing closer. Although Halloween will be celebrated on the 31st of October, the...

Keening Traditions and the Irish Wake

When looking at the lifecycle in terms of folklore it cannot escape ones notice that many aspects of the life cycle have clearly defined...

Walking Ceremonies, Processional Paths, and The Hidden History of Witchwalking

The history of Witchwalking is as old as movement itself. Like many other examples of occult knowledge, it is a legacy that often...

Moon-Bathing Folklore

As well as a full moon, tonight and tomorrow morning will bring a lunar eclipse. I won’t go into the science of this as there are already...

Blúiríní Béaloidis 02 - May Day Folklore

The first of May is marked in Ireland (and across Europe more broadly), as a day on which the summer is welcomed in; where garlands of...

Bealtaine, Fairies, and the Pleiades

In a previous post I wrote about the connection between our concepts of the similar patterns which appear throughout the universe,...

Filaments of Connection - from the Macrocosm to Microcosm, and back

When it comes to mythology and ancient indigenous wisdom it is generally accepted that the stars, constellations, and the cosmos itself...

Blúiríní Béaloidis 08 - Wind & Storms In Folk Tradition

Owing to their impact on human affairs, weather occurrences of all sorts were a source of preoccupation for our forebears, who would look...

Blúiríní Béaloidis 12 - St. Patrick In Folk Tradition

The 17th of March sees countries the world over celebrate Saint Patrick's Day - a day which is commonly marked with large parades and...

Blúiriní Bealoidis 28 - Land & Language

Our guest for this edition of Bluiríní Béaloidis is writer and documentary maker Manchán Magan, whose recent book 'Thirty-Two Words For ...

Witch Bottles and Irish Folk-Magic Protection

I recently read Andrew Michael Hurley's novel, The Loney, which is a tale of folk-magic and superstition, as well as a dark coming of...

The Irish Keening Tradition: Singing the Soul Home

Keening, which was once an integral part of the Irish grieving process, began to vanish from before the 1880’s. In many academic papers...

A February Goddess: Remembering The Little Things

February the 8th, is the Festival of Broken Needles in Shinto and Buddhist traditions. On this day, women will gather up all of the...

St Brigid: Dove Among Birds, Vine Among Trees, Sun Among Stars

Starting next year, we’ve been given a new National Holiday! February 1 is celebrated as St Brigid’s Day in Ireland and to honour our...