Death Reverence in Ireland: The Samhain Threshold
29 October- 5 November 2025
Our Irish ancestors walked with death in a way that has dramatically changed in modernity. An understanding of how we as humans have honored death through the ages and how we have grieved, can offer wisdom for living, dying and grieving in these times.
Join us for a unique and reflective pilgrimage in the west of Ireland, held over the Samhain threshold, a time when the ancestors are close at hand and the lessons they carry for us are revealed in the land and sacred places. We will gather to deepeninto the wisdom and traditions that these people have honored through the mists of time. We will visit ancient neolithic sites of ceremony and burial. We will visit a workhouse, where people often went to die, in hopes of a proper burial. We will learn about waking traditions and banshees, keening practices, and herbs and trees that carry us through these threshold times of death and grief. We will ally an Irish goddess as a death guide for this time and beyond.
Please note this is not a retreat to focus on your own grief process although we certainly will be delving into how our modern approach to death and grief is not serving us and discuss ways to honor these essential life transitions by learning from our ancestors.
Price: $1,895
$200 single supplement (if you wish to have your own bedroom and bath)
INCLUDED: Accommodation in traditional Irish home, with shared bedroom and bath (or single supplement upon request). Our home for the week is in Kinvara, a quaint seaside village in southwest County Galway, vibrant with cafes, pubs, traditional music, craft shops and more. Single occupancy en-suite available upon request for an additional single supplement fee of $200. Self-catered breakfast will be included and one other meal per day (either lunch or dinner). Also included: designated ground transportation within Ireland, site entrance fees, guides and ritual supplies.
NOT INCLUDED: Airfare and travel expenses to Ireland. We will collect you on the arrival date at Shannon Airport (the closest airport) or Galway City (if you fly into Dublin, you can take a coach to Galway). Also not included: travel insurance, one meal per day, dessert, all drinks including alcohol.
To register, a $500 non-refundable (transferable) deposit can be paid via Venmo (@Tonja-Reichley) or HERE and the Tour Conditions (click HERE) completed (electronic signature is fine) and emailed to Tonja at tonjareichley@gmail.com.
More information is included in the Tour Conditions HERE
Proposed Daily Itinerary (subject to change):
Wednesday October 29/ Day 1: Arrivals and collection at Shannon Airport or Galway Coach Station (for those coming from Dublin). We will get settled into our home for the week and have time for a rest, a walk to the sea or into the village. In the liminal light, we will have our opening ritual at a sacred well tucked into the mystical hazel groves of the Burren and collect holy spring water to bless our journey.
Thursday October 30/ Day 2. After a slow start to the day and a morning ritual to meet our death guides, we will venture into the mystical Burren landscape where we will visit a sacred Neolithic site for rites of passage and death rituals. We will honor one of our death guides, Sheela na gig, in her native place, at an ancient Celtic church then visit a Celtic monastic site for grave rubbings. We will honor the death of the day at a beach, collecting hag stones and watching the sunset before a life-nourishing feast at a local seafood restaurant.
Friday October 31/ Day 3: Gregorian Samhain. We will greet the new day in sacred circle before we traverse into the misty wilds of the Burren. We will chant with ancient echoes in an abbey and harvest herbs from the hedgerows. We will create an ancestor plate and welcome their presence with us.
Saturday November 1/ Day 4: All Saints Day. We travel the short distance to Brigit’s Garden to explore the amazing Celtic Festival-themed gardens dedicated to this Goddess and Saint of Healing, midwife to life and to death, the first one to invoke the keen. Then we journey into the blue mists, bogs and stark beauty of Connemara. We will seek healing, honoring grief with the ebb and flow of life and death, from the sea and perhaps take a baptismal dip into her waters. We will close the day, the death of the day which is also the beginning, in our ancient Celtic way of being, at the hearth with Compline.
Sunday November 2/ Day 5: All Souls Day. After our ritual to begin the day, invoking our death guides, we will visit a woodland burial site in the shadow of the burial place of our one of our death guides, Maeve. We will then visit a place that has manufactured clay pipes, a token of Irish wakes and We will journey together to the place of an Irish workhouse and learn about the history of this shadow-side of our Irish ancestors and why they would have desperately sought these places. We will have a quiet evening at home to integrate the gifts and wisdom of the week.
Monday November 3 / Day 6: We will greet the new day in sacred circle before we traverse to the wild edges where we will visit a pilgrimage place and a grotto/ sacred spring/ holy well that holds healing for the living and the dead. We will add our lights to the candles that are lit here to honor the dead. We will gather at the hearth in the evening to have conversation with an Irish friend who has kept funeral and waking rites alive to this day.
Tuesday November 4/ Day 7: Gathering at the hearth, we begin the day together with our death guides. We spiral out into the turas to explore hidden beaches, fairy forts, sacred springs and keen to the Earth, awakening ancient rhythms within and without. We will walk a labyrinth overlooking the wild sea and embody the cycles of life and death. We will find ourselves in the deepening dark and reflecting the wisdom of the Earth as she prepares for her death cycle. We will return home for a closing feast prepared in community!
Wednesday November 5 Day 8: Departures. Ever changed how we can live deeper, remembering how death has been revered by our ancestors and how we can ever live more fully in this life.
