Join storyteller Phil Cousineau on a pilgrimage and cultural adventure to the Wild West of Ireland, where Celtic folklore and Viking legends exist side by side with Christian mysticism and the finest Irish music, literature, and movies.
Today’s Ireland is a place where art and poetry, legends and mysticism converge in a seamless manner. Travel with us to explore the spiritual genius of what the ancient Celts used to call “The Back of Beyond,” the world of saints and scholars, poets and singers. Our 2025 pilgrimage focuses on the glories of Western Ireland, including three glorious days in the Aran Islands, as well as the sacred sites of Clonmacnoise Monastery, the Holy Well of Saint Brigid; the lunar landscape of the Burren, Thoor Ballylee (Yeats’ Tower), Lady Gregory’s Coole Park, Roundstone’s Bodhrán (Irish drum) Shop, and much more. Invited speakers, contemplative nature walks, time for journaling, and lively discussions with Phil Cousineau make this a truly unforgettable tour. We look forward to seeing you there! READ MORE
Phil Cousineau is a writer, teacher, independent scholar, documentary filmmaker, travel leader, storyteller and author of over 40 books including the national best-seller The Art of Pilgrimage, The Book of Roads, and Stoking the Creative Fires, winner of the Book of the Year Award from “Spirituality & Health Magazine.”
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Phil has a way of provoking a sense of wonder in us that allowed me to open my heart, mind & soul to everything and everyone we were exposed to.Christina Moore, Springfield, MO
TESTIMONIALS
Our tour group was a fascinating blend of people who shared an interest in approaching Ireland from a spiritual perspective. It was a privilege to travel with them.Carol Ashworth, McLean, VA
TESTIMONIALS
Tour Description
Join writer and filmmaker Phil Cousineau on a sacred journey that spirals into the heart and soul of one of the most unique cultures in the world, the magical, mythical, and mystical Land of Ireland. The spiral approach is inspired by his work in his worldwide bestseller The Art of Pilgrimage and The Hero’s Journey, which he worked on with mythologist Joseph Campbell, and is poetically reflected by the iconic Irish triple spiral. This poignant symbolism was etched on ancient megalithic monuments, painted in illuminated manuscripts, and incised on swords and jewelry, while representing the life force itself, the journey of the soul from birth to death, as well as the movement between the three realms of Earth, Sea, and Sky.
For us, it will represent the subtle and respectful way we will seek the presence of Ireland’s incantatory storytelling, hypnotic music, and the sheer beauty of glorious countryside.
Meander with us along Ireland’s scenic roads that hug the rugged Irish western shore, roam about the undulating countryside and beautiful boglands, and ferry to the luminous lunarscape of the Aran Islands, as we explore the depths the magical heart of Ireland.
Highlights include visits to the towering Cliffs of Moher, the limestone moonscape of The Burren, Thoor Ballylee, the twelfth-century Norman Tower home of poet W.B. Yeats, a contemplative afternoon in the gardens of Lady Gregory’s Coole Park, Clonmacnoise, and live session of traditional Irish music with the Connemara group “Don’t Tell Dad,” a live Irish play performed by actors from The Curlew Theater, a visit to the brooding ruins of Clifden Castle, and two days and nights at Renvyle House, one of the most historically important and award-winning hotels in Ireland. We will enjoy three nights on the serene Aran Islands and conclude our tour with a rich day in the colorful capital of Dublin, where we will see the Book of Kells at Trinity College.
Our journey will also be enriched by daily morning group discussions and augmented by guest appearances by several of Ireland’s leading authorities, including the music historian and novelist P. J. Curtis, the Celtic mystic-priest and author Dara Molloy, the founder of the Clifden Art's Festival Brendan Flynn, Ireland’s most famous drum maker Malachy “Bodhrán” Kearns, as well as local Irish actors and musicians, and the founder of the Letterfrack Poetry Trail Leo Hallissey. Other guest speakers and performers include archaeologist Padraigin Clancy, Sean Coyne and Tegolan Knowland from Connemara’s much honored The Curlew Theater, and Connemara musicians Fionnuala Hannigan-Dunkley and Ricardo Dunkley.
We look forward to seeing you there, Slainte! (Cheers! in Irish (Gaelic), spoken by most locals on the island)
Arriving early morning in Shannon you will be greeted and taken by coach to the bustling market town of Ennis (from Inis Cluain Ramh Fhada, “Island of the Long Rowing Meadow”) where you will have a traditional Irish breakfast at the Old Ground Hotel, a venerable 18th century coach inn. After breakfast we will have time to wander the meandering medieval lanes of Ennis, which has won multiple Tidy Town Awards and the Friendliest Town in Ireland Award. There we will explore its traditional Irish music shops and woollen stores, and the haunting ruins of the 13th century Ennis Friary. (*your flight must arrive by 7:30 am today, otherwise please arrive on May 21). (Travel time Shannon Airport/Ennis approx. 30 mins.)
We then begin our pilgrimage by taking a short drive to the majestic Cliffs of Moher, which rise 700 feet above the Atlantic. For many centuries, the site has been the inspiration for poets, photographers, and musicians, inspiring songs like the Wolfe Tones’ ballad about star-crossed lovers, “The Cliffs of Moher”. While looking out over the Aran Islands, Galway Bay, as well as the Twelve Pins mountain range in Connemara, we will engage in our first journaling exercise.
After some traditional tea and scones at the Visitor’s Centre (at own expense) we will take you back to the Old Ground Hotel, built in the early 18th century, in Ennis. Here you will have the chance to refresh yourself from your long flight and prepare for our Opening Night Welcome Dinner at the hotel (included in Tour price).
(Overnight in Ennis at the Old Ground Hotel or similar)
Today we travel to the quaint village of Doolin, often regarded as the music capital of Ireland, made famous by the Russell Brothers, from where we will take the 10am ferry to Inishmore – a stunning journey across Galway Bay, which until recently was made only by curraghs, the traditional wood and tar boat. (Your transfer and ferry will take approximately 1 hour 30 mins.)
Arrive at Inishmore, the larger of the three Aran Islands. Here, on the very edge of Europe, is an island rich in the language, culture, and heritage of Ireland, unique in its geology and archaeology and in its long tradition of gentle hospitality. Inishmore is a place to sense the spirit of Gaelic Ireland, but with all the comforts and facilities of the present. Aran will take you back to an Ireland of Celts and Early Christians. This is an island of great peace and tranquility, but it is also an island of great fun and activity. Irish is spoken by most of the locals on the island.
Upon arrival we will take traditional horse-drawn traps across the lunar-landscaped island to the Kilmurvey House, an 18th century stone house built at the foot of the path up to Dun Aengus, the famed Iron Age hill fort. Dun Aengus is the most famous of several prehistoric forts on the Aran Islands.
Enjoy an included lunch today at a local pub with your fellow pilgrims, after which we will be met by a local guide and archaeologist, who will regale us with updated information about recent excavations and theories about life for the ancient Celts on Inis Mor. For film fans, the climatic scene of the 2010 romantic comedy Leap Year, with Amy Adams and Matthew Goode, was filmed here. Weather permitting, we will enjoy some contemplative time and write in our journals.
Evening dinner in town and live traditional music at the rollicking Joe Watty’s Pub, also known for its brilliant local seafood (at own expense).
(Overnight in Inishmore at Kilmurvey House or similar)
Enjoy Full Irish Breakfast at the privately owned Kilmurvey hotel followed by a discussion about the history of the islands, including a discussion about the many Irish writers who ventured out to the islands to find their literary voice, including J. W. Synge and Oscar Wilde.
After taking tea at the local café (at own expense) we will be met by the Celtic philosopher, author, poet, and guide Dara Molloy, who has lived on the island with his family for many years. Dara will lead us on our first round of island pilgrimages that include a 5th century “beehive hut,” the Seven Churches, and the site of St. Kiaran’s 5th century monastery. Dara will lead us in song and prayer and allow us time for contemplation and journaling among these moody ruins.
Dinner (at own expense) then evening shuttle into town for live music and storytelling at Joe Watty’s Pub (optional).
(Overnight in Inishmore at Kilmurvey House or similar)
This morning we will be honored to be met again by Celtic spiritual leader Dara Molloy. Dara will lead us on a second round of Aran pilgrimages, this time to Saint Ciaran’s monastic cites in Mainistir, where we will have a chance to participate in a series of ancient rituals, such as tying a ribbon to a sacred hawthorne tree, circumambulating around a holy well, seeking a blessing from an ancient standing stone, making a wish with a silk scarf at an old Irish Wishing Stone, and surveying the Aran landscape for sacred marks, such as Viking burial mound. Weather permitting, we will visit a local heronry, where up to 10 herons are nesting.
After lunch (own expense), we will continue in the venerable pilgrimage practice of taking contemplative time to write, draw, pray, or walk in silence through the staggeringly beautiful landscape. At sunset we will meet for a third session with Dara, this time in the meeting room at our hotel for an informal evening discussion about the revival of Celtic Christianity and whatever other topics the group would like to discuss.
Dinner in Kilronan (on our own).
(Overnight in Inishmore at Kilmurvey House or similar)
This morning we check out of our hotel and transfer by coach to the ferry port for our 11.15am departure to Doolin. From Doolin we transfer by coach for a day exploring some of the impressive prehistoric sites of Co. Clare.
We'll stop at Vaughan's Pub for lunch (included in Tour price) - a traditional Irish pub serving delicious bar food - before visiting Kilfenora Cathedral to see the famous Seven Celtic High Crosses, dating back to the ninth century.
On our way to Spanish Point we will have a stop in The Burren, a karstic plateau – a stony chaos to the casual observer – with a full assemblage of the curious landforms that characterize such limestone landscapes. Here we will visit the 6,000-year-old Poulnabrone megalithic tomb, engage in our daily contemplative writing exercise, and visit the highly regarded Burren Visitor’s Centre. Here we will discuss the folklore surrounding holy wells and fairy mounds and pay tribute to the Irish mystic and poet John O’Donohue by reading passages from two of his books, Beauty and Blessings. John discussed these works at length with Phil (who was writing his own book on beauty at the time, Who Stole the Arms of the Venus de Milo) in Ballyvaughan, County Clare, only a few months before John died, in 2008.
Late in the afternoon, we transfer to the Armada Hotel to check in.
(Overnight in Spanish Point at the Armada Hotel or similar)
Enjoy Full Irish Breakfast at The Old Ground Hotel followed a morning talk in the hotel conference room with P. J. Curtis, music historian and screenwriter, about the history of Irish music and what rural life was like growing up in County Clare in the 1950s. After our session we will travel to the village of Gort, where we will explore the recently restored Thoor Ballylee, Yeats’ Tower, the former summer home of the great Irish poet, playwright, and statesman, which inspired his long poem “The Tower.” While there we will read some of his poetry and Lady Gregory’s collected fairy tales, and then have time for a leisurely country stroll.
Afterwards, we will enjoy a private tour of the Kiltartan Gregory Museum, which chronicles local County Clare history. Then we travel to Lady Gregory’s Coole Park, where we will enjoy a brief break for tea and scones (at own expense) at the lovely café in the old carriage house. The grounds are an impressive monument to her incalculably important collecting of ancient Irish myths and legends. Coole Park was once home of Lady Augusta Gregory, dramatist, folklorist, and cofounder of the Abbey Theatre Dublin with W. B. Yeats, and, in the early 20th century, was the centre of the Irish Literary Revival. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge, and Sean O’Casey all came to experience its magic. Although the house no longer stands, one can still appreciate the surroundings that drew so many here. Enjoy an afternoon at leisure to wander the magnificent grounds of Coole Park.
Dinner at own expense this evening with optional pub crawl to experience the town’s legendary traditional music.
(Overnight in Spanish Point at the Armada Hotel or similar)
Enjoy Full Irish breakfast this morning followed by a discussion on Thomas Cahill’s classic book, “How the Irish Saved Civilization.” This morning’s excursion is to the enchanted ruins of Clonmacnoise, an early Christian site founded by St Ciaran in the mid 6th century. We will enter along the fifteen-hundred-year-old pilgrim’s trail, sauntering down the time-burnished cobblestones to the three magnificent Round Towers, and its Scriptorium. There, we will have an unforgettable chance to discuss in situ just how the Irish helped create the modern world by preserving and copying a remarkable number of Greek and Roman manuscripts. The long and varied history of monastery, one of the great seats of learning in medieval times, is recounted in an audiovisual presentation shown in the Visitor Centre. There are also exhibitions that deal with the flora, fauna, and landscape of the region. Lunch (at own expense) at Clonmacnoise.
On the way back we will visit Athlone, an ideal regional site and the largest town on the River Shannon standing on the boundaries of two counties, Westmeath and Roscommon, in the centre of Ireland. It is a historic town because of its strategic location and is commonly referred to as the “Gateway to the West.” Take optional refreshments at Sean’s Bar (at own expense), which dates back to 900 AD, and is regarded by some as the “Oldest Pub in Ireland,” and by others as the oldest pub in the world!
Dinner at the hotel (included in tour price), and optional Irish traditional music session in Clifden (at own expense).
Travel to Clifden (apx. 2 hours).
(Overnight in Clifton at Abbeyglen Castle Hotel or similar)
After our morning discussion in our hotel, we will drive along the spectacular Sky Road, with its panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean and Inisbofin, to the haunting ruins of Clifden Castle, the manor home built for John D’Arcy, the founder of Clifden. There we will discuss the ancient pilgrimage practice of the contemplation of ruins and how they evoke thoughts about our mortality and the evanescence of life. We then continue on to arrive by late morning in Roundstone Village, which was featured in the 1997 romantic comedy The Matchmaker.
Enjoy lunch at O’Dowd’s (included in Tour price), which won the James Joyce Irish Pub of the Year Award, and a personal tour of the I.D.A. Craft Centre, led by Ireland’s greatest Bodhrán or drum maker Malachy Kearns, or Malachy Bodhrán, as he is known amongst folk musicians. Malachy works at his craft of making Ireland’s oldest product, the Bodhrán (Bow-Rawn). It is an 18” one-sided drum made from goatskin treated by a traditional process. Malachy supplies the drums for Van Morrison, U2, Christy Moore, and the River Dance troupe.
Dinner at the hotel, after which we will take our coach from Clifden to the legendary Renvyle Hotel, the former home of poet, statesman, surgeon, and novelist Oliver St. John Gogarty (Buck Mulligan in Joyce’s Ulysses), and now a family-run (the Coyle’s) establishment with an award-winning restaurant. Tonight, we will enjoy an Irish play by the Curlew Theater, devised, written, and directed by local poet Eamon Grennan, and performed by Tegolin Knowland and Sean Coyne. Afterwards, we will convene in the popular Renvyle Bar to enjoy a “seisun” of traditional music with the local group “Don’t Tell Dad,” led by Ricardo Dunkley and his daughter Fionnuala Hannigan-Dunkley.
(Overnight in Clifton at Abbeyglen Castle Hotel or similar)
After a full Irish breakfast and our morning discussion we will depart Clifden in our coach bound for the village of Letterfrack (from the Irish for “The Speckled Hill”), founded by the Quakers in the 19th century to provide help for the people of Connemara during the Great Famine, and now a music and craft centre. There we will meet with Leo Hallissey, local schoolteacher and founder of the Letterfrack Poetry Trail, which features 9 plaques containing poems by Irish poets placed on buildings around the village and environs. Leo and a local poet or two will accompany us on our morning walk along the trail.
Set in the heart of the Connemara mountains is the Kylemore Abbey Estate, home of the Irish Benedictine Nuns, and the famous girl’s school which the actress Angelica Huston attended when she lived in Ireland with her filmmaker father, John Huston, in the 1960s. Visit the picturesque Abbey reception rooms, video, and exhibition and enjoy a stroll to the beautiful Neo-Gothic Church and Mausoleum where original owners are buried; browse in the Craft Shop; view Kylemore Abbey pottery as it is produced in the Pottery Studio.
Lunch at Kylemore Abbey or in Letterfrack (included in tour price)
Time permitting, we will drive by coach to Dublin via Strokestown for a mid-afternoon visit to the National Famine Museum. The Great Irish famine of the 1840s is now regarded as the single greatest social disaster of 19th century Europe. Between 1845 and 1850, when blight devastated the potato crop, in excess of two million people – almost one-quarter of the entire population – either died or emigrated. The Famine Museum is located in the original Stable Yards of Strokestown Park House. It was designed to commemorate the history of the famine of Ireland and in some way to balance the history of the “Big House”. The Famine Museum uses the unique documents that were discovered in the estate office, dealing with the administration of the estate during the tenure of the Mahon family. This collection includes many haunting pleas from starving tenants on the estate and the response they received. From there we drive into Dublin where we will have a free evening with an optional pub crawl to the haunts of James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Eavan Bolen, Patrick Cavanagh, Edna O’Brien, and others.
(Overnight in Dublin at the The Grafton Hotel or similar)
Breakfast at our hotel, then into the city centre for our morning discussion and a nice pot of tea at the legendary Bewley’s Tea House (at own expense). Afterwards, we take a casual walk down Grafton Street to Trinity College to savour the glorious campus and view one of the world’s most beautiful works of art.
Trinity College, the sole constituent of The University of Dublin, was founded in 1592 and is the oldest university in Ireland and one of the 7 ancient universities of England and Ireland. Trinity is also one of Ireland’s leading historical sites attracting in excess of half a million visitors each year. The main heritage attraction is the staggering site of The Long Room library, which contains 200,000 rare books, including the ninth century richly illuminated gospel manuscript, The Book of Kells, and the medieval “Bog Book,” a 1200-year-old psalm book, replete with its original leather cover, discovered in the scoop of a backhoe by an alert Irish farmer in his own field, in 2001.
Lunch at your own expense at the nearby spectacular and stylish Café de Seine. Then an optional visit to the National Museum, where we can view such valuable icons as the Glenisheen Gold Gorget, worn by an ancient High King or warrior, the Ardagh chalice, the Oseberg Viking ship, and an emigrant’s tin teapot.
In the spirit of Chaucer’s pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales, we will have a final and informal meeting at the hotel, where we will make time to tell our favorite stories about our time together and discuss what the great gift was of our journey to Ireland. Then we will depart for our Farewell Dinner at the elegant Pearl Brasserie Restaurant (or similar), a 12-minute walk from our hotel.
(Overnight in Dublin at the The Grafton Hotel or similar)
We enjoy our final Full Irish breakfast at the hotel this morning as we bid our farewells to our new found friends and the beautiful “Land of Eire”. As the old Irish blessing goes, “May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sunshine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.”
Transfer to Dublin airport for flights home.
Slainte!
(B = Breakfast; L = Lunch; D = Dinner)
Note: Itinerary and speakers are subject to change due to conditions beyond our control.
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