So things have a been a bit quiet here, that is due to me having moved my blogs to my new site.
From now on you will find me here http://janet.ie/
Wexford Echo — Deirdre laughs off white witch tag – Wexford Echo
Wexford Echo — Deirdre laughs off white witch tag – Wexford Echo.
THE NEW Wexford Co. Council will, no doubt, be an interesting entity with none of the candidates more colourful that People Before Profit Allicance’s (PBPA) Deirdre Wadding who is the first openly Pagan councillor in the country.
Cllr. Wadding, a long-term socialist activist, took the final seat in the Wexford district on Sunday night after a long, two-day count. A vocal campaigner, she has made her mark through her work with the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes and was approached by PBPA on the back of that.
She polled an impressive 599 votes on the first count and picked up a number of large chunks of transfers later in the day.
Laughing off the description of ‘white witch’, Cllr. Wadding said that she was one of 20,000 pagans across the country but, as far as she knew, was the only one now serving as a councillor.
“I did ask the Irish Battle Goddess Morrigan for victory today and I have a crow’s feather in my hair as a reminder of her.”
The outspoken campaigner has been in PBPA for eight months but had initially said ‘no’ to joining up as she felt she was better off on the outside. But, she said, at the party launch Richard Boyd Barrett spoke about the people who didn’t want to go into a party and cited them as the people his party really wanted.
“My motivation isn’t that I want to be in the council. I want to affect change from the inside and the outside. I will still be getting involved in people’s problems, whether it’s a matter of civil rights, taxes and charges or anything else. That is my work and it will continue. I fully intend to be out on the street and be active. But it is a bonus that we will also have a voice on the inside.”
While she is part of an alliance made of left-wing socialists, activists and others, she said that at the doorsteps she was often mistaken for an Independent candidate: “We don’t have a whip system and I went into the party as a socialist activist.”
Regardless of being a party politician, if even in the loosest sense of the phrase, Cllr. Wadding said that she was not surprised by the drift towards the less mainstream parties and Independents: “The government did half of our work for us. A lot of what I got at the door was ‘As long as you’re not Labour, Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil’.”
She added that she was a first-time candidate for a brand new party that a lot of people had not heard of before, all factors which made her performance all the more impressive.
The Lia Fáil
I dread to think of the fate which awaits whoever did that to the Lia Fáil. This stuff used to be deadly fucking serious years ago, still is in some places. The Tuatha Dé Danann were to be respected, for your cows will be dry and there would be no butter in the churn. If you were lucky. The Bishops never managed to beat it out of us but money finished off the fairies in the end.
Green and red paint could suggest some sort of Mayo involvement. Though seeing as they are approaching the end of their own famous curse, I don’t believe vandals from the west are capable of desecrating the seat of the High King.
Wasn’t it tampering with a tomb that finished Sean Quinn.
According to these locals, it was the decision to move a megalithic burial tomb 20 years ago which led to…
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The Dindshenchas of Brug na Bóinde, Boyne Valley, Co. Meath
The Metrical Dindshenchas, Volume 2
Poem 3, pp 19 – 25
The first Dindshenchas poem we looked at in this episode was the second of the poems on “Brug na Bóinde”, the Boyne Valley complex of Co. Meath which specifically centres on Newgrange. We didn’t go through every stanza in the episode, since there were some for which we could find no further information. If you know something about the characters, places or incidents mentioned, why not let us know by leaving a comment?
The English translation here is by Chris, and is more properly a translation of Gwynn’s English! It has been translated for readability, so occasionally leaves out a “cheville” (a stock phrase used to complete a line of poetry in accordance with the syllable count and rhyming scheme of a particular metre), where nothing much is added to the sense of the poem. …
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Children in the Circle – Paganism, Spirituality and our Families
Hanging up decorations to celebrate Yule, carving pumpkins at Halloween, dancing the Maypole and more – all of these are both modern Pagan activities, folk customs and stuff that kids can get involved with. Those of us who have the honour and delight to be parents get to engage in some very interesting questions when it comes to the relationship between our own spiritual practises and our kids. So what is the context for what’s going on? In a significantly secular culture such Britain (around 25% of English citizens describe their religion as ‘none’) there is a tendency to think that spirituality (or the apparent lack of it) is down to personal choice and conscience. Britain is also a spiritually diverse landscape, the arguable origin of a number of new religious paths (as mentioned HERE). It’s also true that the social function of religion in Britain is perhaps different…
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Oweynagat: The Cave of Cats.
I finally did it.
One of the places that is said to be most connected with The Morrigan is The Cave of Cats
at the Rathcroghan complex in Roscommon. It is said that she comes tearing out of the cave at Samhain.
The Cave is part of an underground complex which is said to connect this world the one beyond.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathcroghan#Oweynagat
It was into the depths of that cave I finally went today. The place it’self has intrigued and terrified me
from when I first heard about it, same with the deities which it is associated with.
Today I crawled down into it’s depths and sat leaning against it’s cool walls in the most complete darkness I have ever known.
I am still processing all that happened but I found a Stillness in the Cave and so far it has stayed with me.
I will write up more about the sites and the work being done there by those charged with tending the sites.
StandupIreland and Occult Ireland.
Worm and Snake Charms {Conference Notes}
This weekend I attended an excellent multi-disciplinary symposium on Charms and Magic in Medieval and Modern Ireland, organized by the Department of Early Irish at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. Scholars from so diverse backgrounds as religious studies and archeology, linguistics and philology, and from applied disciplines likes herbal healing and veterinary medicine presented enlightening glimpses into their own work, as it related to the topic. I hope to share what I took away from these talks.
Worm and Snake Charms
The first speaker of the morning was Jacqueline Borsje (University of Amsterdam and University of Ulster), who delved into Irish snake and worm charms as export products. She outlined the importance of charms as words of power, and how important context is when seeking to understand them. Cultural, textual, and situational context is everything; in other words, don’t necessarily take them at face value.
Professor Borsje has written…
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World Book Day 2013
There are a series of World Book Days which happen around the world, here in Ireland we celebrate it on the first Thursday of March, which is today.
I have mentioned how in searching out about my name I ended up reading lots and lots about the witchcraft trials but the first book I ever read with the goal of starting to work towards becoming a witch myself was, A Witch Alone by Marion Green.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Witch_Alone
A Witch Alone is the best-known book by the prolific pagan author Marian Green. Subtitled Thirteen moons to master natural magic, it is a teach-yourself course for people wanting to rediscover and follow the path of the old village witch or cunning man.
The witchcraft described in the book differs from modern Wicca in two main ways. Firstly it is solitary rather involving participation in covens. In this respect it is similar to paths advocated by authors such as Rae Beth and Scott Cunningham. Secondly it avoids complex rituals for a greater emphasis on the natural magic of the old crafts and contact with nature.
Originally published in 1991 by The Aquarian Press, the latest edition, still in print, is from Thorsons (2002).
I got my copy when I was 17, so a little over 20 years ago, it made me look within and without in different ways and ask so many questions. It also I think is why I separate witchcraft from Wicca so easily, from the start I knew anyone could become a witch by themselves but Wicca was a priesthood you have to be brought into.
It is still a book I recommend to people who are starting out and want something helpful and practical which is overly academic.
This year, I’ve really kind of felt a pull away from Valentine’s Day and a draw to study Lupercalia. Given that I have a lot of Sicilian ancestry, it only seems appropriate. “Lupercalia was a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 13 through 15 to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. Lupercalia subsumed Februa, an earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February (Februarius) its name.
The name Lupercalia was believed in antiquity to evince some connection with the Ancient Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia and the worship of Lycaean Pan, assumed to be a Greek equivalent to Faunus, as instituted by Evander.
In Roman mythology, Lupercus is a god sometimes identified with the Roman god Faunus, who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Pan. Lupercus is the god of shepherds. His…
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The Wanton Witch 