Bridging Appalachia

A Baltimorean folklorist in Ireland to explore story as medicine and the preservation of traditional foodways and medicine techniques in Irish lore.


  • Living Traditions with @wildroutesireland ~ Day 7/8

    🪨 Healy Pass 🐑 [pic 2] 🪨 Stone Circle @ Uragh w/ ceremony by Deirdre Wadding of @coiresois [pic 1,3,4] 🪨 Lunch in Kenmare [pic 5] 🪨 Storytelling with Deirdre Wadding 🪨 Willow basketry with @belongingtothewillows [pic 7,8,9] 🪨 The Art of Storytelling workshop with Deirdre Wadding

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  • Living Traditions with @wildroutesireland ~ Day 5/6

    🌿 Moving house from Slieve Aughty to Glengarriff with a quick stop to sing with the Yews in Killarney [not pictured] 🎶

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  • Living Traditions with @wildroutesireland ~ Day 3/4

    🌈 Líos na Gránisí Stone Circle and Lough Gur with sacredsitesofireland ~ fabulous storytelling & meditation with accompanying rain and rainbow 🌈 Amazing food and trad @ Peppers Bar & Restaurant ~ Feakle 🌈 Lovely seaweed and hedgerow foraging talk with @wildkitchen_lahinch followed by an incredible foraged lunch 🌈 Fascinating harpmaking demo with @briancallan123 🌈 Evening storytelling with…

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  • Living Traditions with @wildroutesireland ~ Day 1/2

    🌿opening circle with offerings to the sidhe 🌿strawcraft with Melanie Lorian of Cailleach’s Cottage 🌿 @slieveaughtycentre 🌿 Inis Oírr 🌿 Crios weaving demo w/ Mairtín Ó Conghaile @cleasinisoirr 🌿 St Gobnait’s Church 🐝 🌿 wildflower walk with @aedinot 🪻

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  • Blackthorn Relationships in Fairy Faith

    Reidar Christiansen defines fairy faith as a “complex of beliefs connected with the existence on earth of another race side by side with man but normally invisible to him” (1971-1973, 95).  In an Irish context, this native vernacular religious system encompasses not only belief in unseen supernatural beings, like fairies and ghosts, but also uncanny…

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  • Shillelagh: Blackthorn in Action

    My blackthorn shillelagh was obtained for the practice of Doyle-style bataireacht, a tradition of two-handed, Irish[1] stick fighting, which was passed through the male lineage of the Doyle family, beginning in the west of Ireland and continuing in the Mi’kmaw territory of Ktaqmkuk[2] after the family’s emigration.  With his father’s deathbed permission and a drive…

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  • Garland Sunday | Domhnach Crom Dubh | Bilberry Sunday | Reek Sunday

    NFC S 622: 118 “The name Garland Sunday is used generally at the present time and we very often hear, in these districts on the week previous to the last Sunday in July one youth putting the question to another, ‘Are you going to Garlic,’ ‘Garlic’ being a corruption of Garland.On this day every householder…

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  • Saint Swithin’s Day

    Saint Swithin’s Day

    NFC S 0506: 090 St. Swithin’s Day. St. Swithin’s day falls on the 15th July. It is said if it rains on St. Swithin’s it will rain for forty days. Patricia Miller, Graigue, Adare.Age 12 yrs. From dúchas.ie @nationalfolklorecollection

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  • Bonefire Night

    Bonefire Night

    NFC S 0033: 0048 “The feast of St. John is held on the twenty fourth of June. On the eve of St. John’s feast the people make a bone fire in honour of St. John. The young school boys go around to every house gathering turf and sticks for the fire. They also get oil…

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  • Blessed Solstice.

    Blessed Solstice.

    The sun was shining until almost 11 pm in Dublin, leading the way to a nearly full moon.

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