The Irish Diaspora Experience

As members of the Irish diaspora, we carry unique cultural inheritances: we are resilient and witty, and we possess an unparalleled ability to tell stories and wax poetic. But we are also often weighed down by the depths of unspoken grief, the pain of displacement, and the heaviness of historical trauma. Our gifts and burdens travel through generations, leaving no parts of our selves untouched: our relationships, spirituality, sense of belonging, and sense of ourselves.

the irish descent might be calling you if:

• You are distressed by all the drinking happening around you, especially as you notice that for people of many other cultural backgrounds, the prevalence of alcohol is not an organizing principle of their lives.

• You deeply long for a connection to God but have been left wounded and jaded by your experiences with the Catholic Church you grew up with.

• You harbor a deep, amorphous sense of grief and dislocation that no amount of relational, material, or career satisfaction has ever eased.

• You know in your soul that the words on this page stir something in you, even if you don’t understand what it means yet.

Reclaiming What Was Lost

Many of us with Irish ancestry carry the weight of historical trauma without understanding its source: genocidal famine, colonization, forced migration, and the severing of connections to our land, our language, and our ancient traditions.

The history of the Irish is one of great tragedy, and for so many generations our ancestors used all their energy simply trying to survive.

These many generations’ worth of unprocessed pain exists in our bodies, interfering with our ability to connect to our gifts. We may find ourselves struggling to maintain relationships, unable to access creativity, feeling disconnected from all that is sacred, and numb to the natural world.

Perhaps we even find ourselves resenting parts of our heritage, or even, ourselves.

And this chronic malaise might have been happening for so long that you simply think that this is who you are.

But I am here to tell you that the pain you are feeling is not who you are.

I feel passionately about working with members of the Irish diaspora because I have seen that when we bring compassionate attention to the parts of us who’ve been burdened with the pains of the past, something alchemical begins to happen.

In descending to the depths of what it means to be Irish, we metabolize what’s been stuck (often for generations) and create space inside ourselves. And in that space, we are able to connect once again to our gifts: to our storytelling, our music, our deep pull to community and to the wild world, to our sense of humor. We are able to rise to the heights and fullness of who we are: inheritors and active participants of a rich, beautiful way of life.

The Irish Descent is not just a journey to retrieve your own soul. It’s a journey to reclaim the soul of your culture.

Are you ready to recover what’s been lost?