I AM IRELAND

Celebrating Pádraig Pearse

~ Ignite Your Aisling ~

~ Resurrect Your Inner Rebel ~

~ Activate Your Artistic Muse ~

which took place on 24th April 2025.

When you purchase make your purchase, you will receive an email from eimear@stassin.co.uk containing the replay details in downloadable video and audio form.

 

I AM IRELAND Online Gathering Outline

  • Honouring Bealtaine: Uniting with the passion, power and poise of Queen Maebh. Reclaim your true queendom.

  • Sacred Storytelling: The Story of Pádraig Pearse from Eimear’s poetic perspective

  • The Aisling & The Proclamation: In the spirit of sovereignty and freedom, birth your own Aisling, your visionary proclamation for yourself and your people

  • Mise Éire / I AM IRELAND Meditation: Why is Ireland lonelier than the Cailleach Béara? Reconnect to The Motherland and your indigenous roots.

  • Soul Journalling: Connect with your inner rebel and visionary truth this Bealtaine

 

Bealtaine: 8 Seasons of the Irish Wisdom Wheel

As the wheel of the year turns, we step from Spring Equinox into Bealtaine in the northern hemisphere and from Autumn Equinox into Samhain in the southern hemisphere.

In the northern hemisphere, Goddess Bóinn passes the torch to Queen Maebh. Queen Maebh reminds us of the truth of the sovereignty that lies within. Her energies reside throughout Ireland, including at her Rath, her fort by the Hill of Tara.

Help clear the weight of sadness due to the colonial wound that resides upon the land of Ireland and any harmful deeds that happened by the hands of the coloniser so that the true King/Queen energies may rise again. Queen Maebh steps forth this Bealtaine to be the pure role model for the powerful beauty of true queendom. She is ready to greet you with a drink of her intoxicating elixir from her golden chalice. We call on Queen Maebh to awaken the energies of passion, power and poise so that it may ripple out across the island of Ériu and beyond.

We celebrate the bountiful fruits of Bealtaine, honouring those who represent true freedom, equality and love.

 

Sacred Story: The Inspiration

There's a park near my birth home in Dublin called St Enda’s. It’s only a five minute walk up the road. We would go there to feed the ducks as children; play hide and seek in the stone folly's dotted around the park or roll down the grassy hill like wild ones, shrieking in dizzying delight.

As a studious teenager I'd take a break to clear my head crammed full of facts and information for the hefty Leaving Certificate exams and walk in the direction of St Enda's. But I rarely stopped there. I'd cut through the park to continue on up Grange Road to the jewel in the crown of Rathfarnham, Marlay Park. With sweeping views of the Dublin Mountains, it was here that I felt most expansive and free.

Yet now that I have lived away from Ireland since March 2000, it's to St Enda's park I am often drawn when I go home.

I have just returned from a week in Dublin celebrating my mother's big birthday with all the family. I felt a strong pull to wander the grounds of St Enda's across several days of my visit.

You see St Enda's isn't just your bog standard suburban green haven of elderly Yew, Hawthorn and Cherry Blossom; Horse Chestnut, Silver Birch and Oak. Where a tributary of the River Dodder flows serenely over silted river floor and an expansive walled garden is home to shapely flower beds framed by a central bubbling water fountain feature from which stony pebble paths guide you in contemplation to walk alongside the green grassy lawns.

Where squirrels run here and there whilst blackbird busily feeds his chicks, translucent wings of flies protruding from his strong yellow beak and thrush with beautiful speckled chest and sweet song hops amongst the pale yellow and orange daffodils. A place to enjoy a coffee, cake and chat in the tranquil courtyard, to the trickle of a smaller fountain.

St Enda's Park is home to the Pearse Museum in remembrance of Pádraig Pearse, poet, writer, teacher and activist. Gifted to the Irish state in 1968 at the behest of his mother Margaret in order to remember her two sons Pádraig and William.

On one particular visit, it was a quick visit with my husband and daughter. After a short walk, we popped into the Pearse Museum.

"Have you been before?" asked the lady at reception.

"Many times", I told her, adding that my daughter shares a birthday with Pádraig Pearse, born 128 years apart. It's so fitting since we named her Aisling which means a dream or a vision in Irish, with the deeper poetic meaning of the vision of a free Ireland.

I guided Aisling to the room that housed Pádraig's handwritten letter to his mother. It felt important to show her. Written on 3rd May 1916 only a few hours before his death.

I began to read Pádraig's words aloud, my eyes welling up as I paused on the line "Good-bye, dear, dear Mother...". I felt his deep deep love for his mother in his handwritten words alongside an acceptance of his fate. I realised that his unwavering love of Ireland mirrors my love for Ireland too. His prose flow like that tributary of the River Dodder with much depth, love and thought. We have a lot in common.

"Good-bye, dear, dear Mother...I have not words to tell my love of you, and how my heart yearns to you all. I will call to you in my heart at the last moment. Your son, Pat" - Pádraig Pearse

As we walked through the rest of the museum, I felt a connection rise up through my feet as I tread upon the dark wooden floorboards. A remembrance of walking these floors proudly, with confidence when it was a school for boys. Knowing that I have indeed been here before.

Pádraig Pearse was the first of fifteen men to be executed over the course of nine days. In front of a twelve man firing squad. In Stonebreakers Yard, Kilmainham Gaol. At 3:45am on 3rd May 1916. For his part in the Easter 1916 Rising. His mother and siblings were not able to visit him before his death due to the ongoing upheaval in Dublin. His final letter eventually found its way to his mother weeks after his death.

Did the twelve soldiers also call to their mothers in their hearts as they pressed their forefingers down on the trigger to fire those bullets that killed?

"I am happy except for the great grief of parting from you. This is the death I should have asked for if God had given me the choice of all deaths, - to die a soldier's death for Ireland and for freedom." - Pádraig Pearse

There is much more that I wish to share to honour this man who played a key role in Ireland's fight for freedom. I wish to carry on his legacy, not through guns and fighting but with my artistic endeavours of word weaving, poetry and our shared love for the indigenous landscape of language and these native lands.

Join us this Bealtaine for this very important gathering.

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Le neart i mo chroí / with strength in my heart,

Eimear x