Lora O'Brien – Irish Author & Guide
Your Authentic Connection to Ireland
A version of this article on the Rag Tree in the Irish Tradition first appeared as a guest post on the Call of the Morrigan community blog in 2016. So, I’ve worked for the last 14 years as a professional tour guide to the sacred sites of Ireland, and let me tell ya, I’ve seen some…
It’s been suggested a couple of times that I should get on ‘the other side of the interview’, and talk about my own Irish Spirituality, and Pagan or magical practices. So recently I queried my Community for their questions on Irish Paganism and Spirituality (or my history/practice in particular). Then I went on FB Live and…
… This ‘Irish Accent’ shit though. And leprechaun hats and lucky charms and a ‘Brigid Oracle’ machine and ‘Irish Yoga’ memes – well, begosh and begorra sure aren’t all the Oirish quaint and charming funny drunks?! Ok, so that’s the frustrated rant part over. Well, the rant part at least. Ok, so I MAY rant…
(There’s a presumption that American Tourists are) …insensitive rude people who think the only way to do things properly is their way. This presumption isn’t limited to Irish People of course. But I find I have to prove myself to not be “one of those Yanks” before people will trust me and open up. However,…
Flour. Baking Soda. Buttermilk. There you go, that’s your Irish soda bread recipe. Ok, so there MIGHT be a bit more to it than that, but seriously like, nothing a few practice runs won’t sort out. (Gluten Free flour works grand too, btw, just swap in a quality self raising kind for regular flour) Here’s…
In Gaelic Ireland, your husband being too fat to have sex was grounds for divorce. A woman could easily divorce her husband for obvious reasons, like hitting her hard enough to cause a blemish, but she also had the legal protection which ensured he couldn’t go down to the village pub and blab about their…
Wikipedia says: “The River Saile (known also as Weile Weile Waile) is a children’s nursery rhyme from Ireland.” That’s true like, it is a song I heard as a kid, they taught it to us in primary school, so we would have sung it from about the age of 5 or 6 years old. I got all…
Phoney Mahoney. Fake Irish. Plastic Paddy. Not terms you’d want to be used about you if you’re serious about your Irish heritage. Well, more serious at least than a green leprechaun hat and getting pissed as a fart on Paddy’s Day. So, how do we avoid such labels? How do you know if you are…
It’s not that hard, really. Us Irish actually have the toughest time of it, with our outdated dinosaur curriculum forced-by-nuns-and-christian-brothers system of learning the Irish or Gaeilge, from the age of 4 or 5 until we leave school at 17 or 18. There’s many an Irish person who’s done over 13 years of schooling here,…
A Beginner’s Guide?Eh…. how far back should I go? Because what you’ve heard about ‘The Troubles’ is only the tip of the iceberg, really. The Normans, perhaps? Strongbow was a Norman lord from Wales who started the Norman conquest of Ireland, around 1170. Though some of them ‘went native’ and were absorbed into Gaelic (Irish) culture,…