Lora O’Brien was born in Dublin, in the late 70s, to a mother who valued long excursions to historical houses, and trekking across fields to locate obscure archaeological monuments of a summer’s afternoon. As a child, this was deemed tremendously boring; but of course the experience and knowledge that has been passed on through that early matriarchal madness has long since come into its own.
She has been a published freelance writer from the tender age of 23, and an author since she was 26. That is longer ago than she likes to think about. She’s an Author, Teacher, and Guide, with strong personal and professional experience in our history, heritage, archaeology, mythology, and pre-christian Irish Spirituality.
Lora O’Brien is a modern Draoí (Druid) – a practitioner and priest of indigenous Irish magic and spirituality, in the simplest terms. She managed one of Ireland’s most important sacred sites – Cruachán/Rathcroghan – for a decade, co-organised Ireland’s national Pagan festival (Féile Draíochta) through its lifespan until 2015, and is a co-founder and legal celebrant with Pagan Life Rites Ireland.
She has been teaching all of this Pagan stuff since around 2000, when she began working for one of the biggest online witchcraft forums in the world (at the time)… though she’s been doing all of the Pagan stuff a lot longer than that. Her whole life, really, in hindsight, but consciously since 1994 (when she was just 16 and read a book on Paganism). She started her relationship with the Irish Pagan Goddess Mórrígan in 2004, just before her first book was traditionally published… and the rest as they say, is history!
Book publications include – Irish Witchcraft from an Irish Witch, 2004 (2nd Edition, 2020); A Practical Guide to Irish Spirituality, 2013; Rathcroghan – a Journey, 2015; Tales of Old Ireland – Retold, 2018; Harp, Club & Cauldron – A Harvest of Knowledge [editor, essay], 2018; Politics, Kinship and Culture in Gaelic Ireland [essay], (Wordwell) 2018; A Practical Guide to Pagan Priesthood, (Llewellyn) 2019; The Irish Queen Medb, 2020; and a forthcoming work on the Fairy Faith in Ireland, 2021. Lora is currently a candidate for a Masters Degree in Irish Regional History (2023).
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She lives in County Waterford with her partner Jon O’Sullivan (An Scéalaí Beag) and two of her three children (here follows the obligatory ‘pets’ listing of the author bio)… and a dog and a snake. There is currently no possibility of cats in her life, and for this she has an occasional sad.
If you want to contact Lora O’Brien by email, you can do that by joining the Mailing List Community – Just Hit Reply to any of the messages we send out, and she will be able to read your message – then you’ll get a response from IPS Admin!
(Unfortunately, Lora does not have the time or resources to personally respond to every email at present. Personal consultation with her partner Jon can be accessed here.)