Our Story

Woman Spirit Ireland was set up as an educational organisation in the early 1990s. 

Our founders comprised theologically educated women, largely excluded from teaching in Irish academic and theological institutions, and others in leadership roles in religious congregations who supported our aims. With their assistance, we became an educational company in 1995, and eventually achieved charitable status. Initially our name was: The Institute for Feminism and Religion (still our company name). Later, we changed our working name to Woman Spirit Ireland. 

From the outset we have offered a range of courses over ten weeks, mostly in Dublin or Belfast. Among our course offerings were the following: 

  • Feminist Theology: An Introduction

  • Exploring Feminism and Religion

  • Celtic Spirituality: A Feminist Exploration

  • Back to Beginnings

  • Political Theology

  • Toward a Theology of Mercy

  • The Faith of our Fathers and the Work of Our Mothers

  • Exploring the Radical Roots of Our Traditions

  • Irish Women’s Wisdom

  • Bringing Consciousness to Birth

  • Turning Back the Streams of War: Women Activists and Theorists

  • Nourishing Woman Spirit

  • Reclaiming a Woman-Centred Spiritual Heritage

  • Women of Spirit: Inspiring Foremothers Leading Change

  • Exploring the Old Irish and Scottish Wise Woman: The Cailleach

  • Mother Earth and the Megamachine 

  • The Cailleach and Brigit in the Ritual Landscape of Scotland: gateway to understanding the past, and ourselves.

Weekend Seminars 

We have offered several weekend seminars on key authors who study the relationship between spirituality, religion, feminism, philosophy, art and psychoanalysis, including:

Luce Irigaray

Julia Kristeva

Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger: The Feminine and the Maternal in the Matrixial Transference, through Psychoanalysis and Art.  

Festivals of Brigit

Since 1994, we have offered many weekend Festivals of Brigit, in the East, West and North of Ireland, and later in Canada and North America with sister organisations.  (Our work later extended to offering events at Bealtaine, Lughnasadh, and Samhain.)  At these events we typically provide extensive resources so that our participants can in turn organise similar events in their own communities.

Study Days

We have also offered Study Days, and occasional evenings, exploring our ancient and indigenous Irish and British heritage with the following resource persons:  

  • Michael Dames 

  • Seán Ó Duinn OSB

  • Stuart McHardy 

  • Max Dashu 

  • Anthony Murphy

  • Margaret MacCurtain OP

  • Séamas Ó Catháin 

  • Nellie Curtin

Seasonal Festivals

These Study Days enabled us to bring our indigenous heritage to consciousness, and eventually we began to celebrate the remaining three quarterly festivals:

  • Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Samhain 

Summer School

Landscapes of Women’s Soul (2006) 

Resource persons for this week-long event included Rosemary Radford Ruether; Peggy Reeves Sanday; Margaret MacCurtain, OP; Marian Dunlea; Edel Bhreathnach; Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin;  Deirdre Ní Chinnéide; Caroline Kehoe; Nóirín Ní Ríain; Kathleen McPhillips.

 

Conferences

In 2007, together with the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies in Trinity College Dublin, we organised a conference: Challenging Cultures of Death 2007. Our resource persons were Anne Primavesi, (nee Sheridan), theologian and eco-feminist; Peggy Reeves Sanday, anthropologist; Genevieve Vaughan, theorist of the Maternal Gift Economy; Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, artist, psychoanalyst and theorist; Griselda Pollock, art historian and feminist theorist.  

Online Events

Since the advent of the pandemic, our events have largely been online, celebrating the seasonal festivals.