Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld | A Journey of Individuation & Ancestral Healing
Course Two
Bridge to an Unseen Shore
Bean Feasa | Wise Woman and Mediator of the Gaelic Otherworld
Trauma and Meaning-Making
This course is the second course in the six-part Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld series.
It can be taken as part of the course series or standalone.
This is a self-paced, reflective online course
You are invited to move slowly, to pause when needed, and to return to the material in your own time.
The work is offered with care, spaciousness, and respect for each person’s pace and inner world.
An Invitation
The Bean Feasa—the “woman of knowledge”—is one of the most enduring figures in Irish folklore. Known for healing both physical and spiritual wounds, she stands between the human world and the Otherworld, tending to imbalances with the Aos Sí. Gifted with second sight, her wisdom is said to arise from her own encounters with the unseen. Bridge to an Unseen Shore invites you into relationship with this archetypal figure—not as a relic of the past, but as a living presence within the symbolic psyche. This course explores the Bean Feasa as a guide through disorientation, illness, trauma, and transition—revealing her as a bridge between conscious and unconscious, the rational and the imaginal, and a companion to our own unseen shores.
Rooted in Irish Myth & Ancestral Memory
In the Gaelic world, the Bean Feasa was known as a healer of ailments believed to arise from imbalance with the Aos Sí—otherwise known as the faeries. Her knowledge was not learned from books, but gained through encounter, intuition, and lived relationship with the unseen world.
We will explore the Gaelic Otherworld, encountering the story of the renowned nineteenth-century Bean Feasa, Biddy Early. Born in 1798 near Feakle, County Clare, she became a legendary healer and seer. Her enigmatic magic bottle—said to be a gift from the Otherworld—revealed truths hidden from ordinary sight. Living by her own authority, independent and unmoved by clerical or sceptical pressure, Biddy embodied an older current of wisdom rooted in nature, spirit, and ancestral knowledge. Through her story, we glimpse the symbolic psyche of our forebears and how it continues to resonate within our own inner world today. You will hear recordings in the Irish language, from the Connemara Gaeltacht community were i grew up, recollections of the Bean Feasa from living memory.
In this course, Irish mythology and folklore offer a symbolic language for these liminal roles within us—the capacity to listen deeply, hold ambiguity, and guide inner experience toward meaning and integration.
The Irish word for Foxglove is Lus Mór (big herb) or Méaracán na mBan Sí, meaning “Herb or Thimble of the Banshee/Fairy Women”. It was believed to belong to the fairies, who used the flowers as gloves or bells.
The Heart of This Course
From a depth psychological lens, the Bean Feasa embodies the Wise Woman archetype—the inner mediator between conscious and unconscious. This course explores what it means to stand between worlds, meeting places of trauma, grief, and rupture where meaning has fractured and the psyche seeks integration rather than resolution.
Through Irish folklore, the Otherworld, and depth psychology, we engage the Bean Feasa as a living guide—cultivating attunement, compassion, and symbolic knowing. Rooted in Ireland’s landscapes and traditions, this journey invites a deepening into the imaginal self, honoring ancestral echoes and loosening old patterns so we may step more fully into an authentic life.
Join Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin on this symbolic bridge to an unseen shore. Together, through the work of Psychotherapy, Depth Psychology, Irish Mythology, and Folklore, we will journey into the liminal terrain the bean feasa inhabits, learning how her wisdom helps us bridge the landscapes of our own inner world and soul self.
Themes We Explore Together
Themes explored include:
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Myth, Image & the Living Psyche:
Engaging with Irish mythology, folklore, and poetic imagery as symbolic mirrors and doorways into the psyche and soul. -
Ancestral Wisdom and Cultural Memory:
Reconnecting with ancestral lineage, Irish language, and heritage as source of meaning, continuity, and soul nourishment. -
The Bean Feasa : Tales of the Bean Feasa from archives and interviews with my own Connemara Community, exploring her role as healer, seer, and mediator between worlds.
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Wise Woman: Understanding this archetype in Jungian depth psychology as an inner guide who holds and integrates conscious and unconscious experience.
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The Healing Power of the Numinous: Approaching experiences of trauma and illness through a symbolic lens that opens pathways to meaning and integration and the numinous.
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Between Worlds: Exploring the threshold between conscious and unconscious, and how we learn to navigate and hold this liminal space.
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Ethical Imagination: Cultivating discernment and responsibility in working with imagination, symbol, and altered or liminal states of awareness.
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Synchronicity, Mystery & the Unseen
Exploring meaningful coincidence and unseen forces—inviting trust in the subtle patterns connecting inner and outer worlds.
You are invited to meet these themes gently, allowing insight to arise in its own time.
This course is for you if…
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Drawn to the Wise Woman:You feel a connection to the figure of the Wise Woman within Irish folklore and tradition.
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Times of Transition: You are noticing you are in times of transition - navigating illness, trauma, or a period of deep personal change.
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A Deeper Understanding of Healing
You sense that healing involves meaning and integration, not only repair. -
A Symbolic Lens: You are curious about symbolic and depth-oriented approaches to the psyche and trauma.
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Ancestral & Mythic Connection
You feel called toward Irish mythology, ancestral wisdom, and the living spiritual landscape of Ireland. -
Walking with Intention
You are already engaged in personal or therapeutic work and feel called to walk this path with care, ethics, and imagination. -
Listening to the Inner World
You feel drawn to dreams, symbols, and the quiet language of the inner life as guides for understanding and transformation. -
Holding the Liminal
You are willing to sit with uncertainty and mystery, and to explore the spaces in-between where deeper insight and change can emerge.
You will learn…
In this course, you will explore trauma and meaning-making through the lens of myth, symbol, and story. You will be introduced to the Wise Woman as an inner figure of intuition and healing. Drawing on Irish folklore and the tradition of the Bean Feasa, including the story of Biddy Early, it offers an immersive experience of an older world—opening a window into the lives of our ancestors and the communal practices that shaped their ways of knowing. Along the way, you may begin to notice how these ancestral narratives reflect your own experience and open symbolic pathways for reflection. We gently explore thresholds of change, loss, and renewal, weaving together ancestral wisdom, the Gaelic Otherworld, and Jungian depth psychology to deepen imagination and our engagement with mystery.
What is included?
This course is educational and reflective in nature and is offered as a supportive complement to personal or therapeutic work.
A Self-Paced Online Course you can return to at any time
120+ Minutes of Immersive Video Content
30+ Page Companion E-Workbook for reflection and integration
Space for journaling, contemplation, and embodied listening
Instant access with unlimited lifetime availability
CPD Certification for Irish Professionals
A Depth Psychology Experience Rooted in the Irish Mythology
Photograph: Biddy Early (1798-1874) - This is her cottage in Feakle, Co. Clare. Local clergy once forbade people to give directions to her house. Feakle’s name comes from the Irish word fiacail, meaning “tooth.”
Bridge to an Unseen Shore online course is an immersive, embodied journey of soul and psyche, weaving sweeping images of Irish Landscape, myth, folklore, music, poetry and ritual to support a return to your inner world and soul self.
Begin the Journey
Join the Course
Bridge to an Unseen Shore
Bean Feasa | Wise Woman and Mediator of the Gaelic Otherworld
The Bean Feasa, a traditional folk healer, becomes a bridge to our own symbolic, unseen shores— guiding us between conscious and unconscious realms, the rational and the imaginal. From a Jungian psychological perspective, she reflects the Wise Woman archetype, the inner mediator who leads us from fragmentation toward integration. Through reflective practices, stories, and guided inner work, we engage our own intuitive capacities, listening for what wishes to be healed, reclaimed, or remembered.
FAQ
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All workshops, courses, programs and products are designed to support your personal development. They are not designed to diagnose, prescribe or recommend any specific psychological, psychiatric or physical health interventions. Anyone engaging in this work agrees to take responsibility for their own personal wellbeing and should they need to consult an individual licensed, qualified healthcare professional, they will do so at their own discretion.
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The LIVE workshops weave together the course content with group discussion and reflection, building upon community and the collective experience. After the LIVE workshop date, the immersive video seminars allow you to explore at your own pace and start whenever you feel called to step into the journey. The essence of the courses is the same as the live workshop version and still draws on aspects closest to my heart, from Irish mythology, poetry, and the ancient Gaelic world, connecting to the body and the deeper symbolic, soul self.
I add course sections for deeper reflection, videos that share the myths in a visual format, and journal invitations to help you directly apply the work to your daily life.
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New Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld workshops/courses may be added in the future; please join the mailing list to be the first to be notified.
The Bean Feasa’s movement between worlds mirrors our own inner crossings—between conscious and unconscious, and the liminal spaces where old identities fall away and something new begins to emerge. It is a journey into these inner thresholds, where insight arises from the unseen and healing becomes a reconnection with meaning, lineage, land, and the numinous.
About
Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin
BSocSc, MA Social Work, MA Psychotherapy, Dip Supervision, Dip Jungian Psychology, Certified Coach (WCI)
I am a Psychotherapist, Educator and Folklorist with over 20 years of experience. I work internationally and am dual-located in the US and Ireland (in Northern Nevada and on the West Coast of Ireland, in Connemara). I work from a Jungian and depth-oriented perspective, integrating Jungian Psychology, Psychodynamic and somatic therapies.
I grew up in Connemara, a wild and rugged landscape on the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Oscar Wilde famously said of the region, “Connemara is a savage beauty”. I grew up in a small, rural Gaeilge (Irish) speaking community where Gaeilge is my first language, and is still spoken today in people's homes. This area was a major centre for the work of the Irish Folklore Commission, recording endangered folklore, mythology, sean-nós (old-style) songs, and oral literature. I have been greatly influenced by the wild physical landscape and immersed in those ancient songs, stories, customs, myths, legends, and music since childhood.
My work interweaves the Gaelic (Irish) World and Otherworld with Jungian Depth Psychology. This work becomes a doorway through which you can enter and explore your own inner landscape. I desire to share with you a felt sense of that ancient culture and spirit and, as a Psychotherapist, support how that connection can nourish and guide you on your personal development journey.
“Images that are true symbols... are the best possible expressions for something unknown—bridges thrown out towards an unseen shore.”