Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld | A Journey of Individuation & Ancestral Healing
Course four
Chaos at theThreshold
The Bean Sí | ‘Banshee’
Samhain, the Supernatural and the door into the dark
NEWEST LIVE EVENT ! Join me live Online in a 4 hour International Workshop
Sunday October 25th 2026 - 9am PST | 12pm EST | 5pm Irish time
This is the fourth course in the six-part Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld series. (Check FAQ below for International times)
It can be taken as part of the course series or standalone.
If you cannot attend live, you will receive the full online course program.
(Please note, the live discussions on the day are not recorded to preserve participant privacy).
An Invitation
I invite you into an ancient festival of Samhain, a doorway into the dark, known around the world as halloween—a festival that originated in Ireland and one that is held within Irish ancestral tradition, a time when the boundaries between the human world and the Otherworld become uncertain, and the familiar landscape opens onto mystery. In this course we meet the Bean Sídhe, known by many names - the Bean Sí (Banshee) meaning the Woman of the fairy mounds, the woman of the Otherworld—whose haunting wails belong to the borderlands between life and death. Far more than the frightening figure she became in popular imagination, she emerges from a world in which the dead remain close, the fairies inhabit the land, and the unseen is woven into the fabric of ordinary life.
To enter the world of Samhain is therefore to enter a place of threshold, chaos and uncertainty—between harvest and winter, light and darkness, the living and the dead, the human and the Otherworld. Drawing upon Irish folklore and Jungian depth psychology, together we explore what happens when familiar boundaries dissolve and chaos enters our lives. Rather than something merely to be feared, chaos may belong to the ancient pattern of transformation: the unsettling space in which an old order has ended, but what comes next has not yet revealed itself.
Rooted in Irish Myth & Ancestral Memory
In Ireland, Oíche Shamhna—Samhain night or All Hallow’s Eve—marked a threshold in the year, when the harvest ended, winter began, and the boundaries between the human world and the Otherworld grew uncertain. The spirits of the dead were believed to return to the homes of the living, candles were lit for those who had departed, and food and water were left for unseen visitors.
The Aos Sí, the fairy people, were said to be ‘abroad’ in the landscape, and as the old stories go, the last fruits of autumn were touched or blighted by their breath. The shapeshifting Púca brought mischief and unpredictability, while divination, disguise, feasting, and strange encounters belonged to a night when the ordinary order of things was briefly overturned, and chaos reigned.
Within this liminal landscape we encounter the Bean Sídhe—the Woman of the Sídhe or the fairy mound—whose haunting cry and wail, announces death and carries us to the mysterious border between worlds. Through the Bean Sídhe or Sí and the Púca, the wandering dead, and the fairy traditions of Samhain, we enter deeper layers of the Gaelic imagination—where landscape, ancestry, mortality, and the unseen meet at the threshold.
The Heart of This Course
This course explores the Bean Sí—the Woman of the Sí—a mysterious figure who inhabits the borderlands between the human world and the Otherworld. Through her haunting cry and her association with death, we encounter the deeper mysteries of Samhain: the wandering dead, the fairy world, the shapeshifting Púca, and a night when the familiar order of things gives way to uncertainty and the unseen draws near.
Jung understood that profound transformation often begins with a disturbance of the familiar: old identities loosen, certainty gives way, and we find ourselves in the unsettling territory between what has ended and what has yet to emerge. The strange and unpredictable figures of Samhain offer powerful archetypal images through which to explore these thresholds of the psyche.
The course offers a space for reflection, cultural exploration, and imaginative engagement with the Gaelic Otherworld. We consider the Bean Sí as a threshold figure, the Púca through the lens of the Trickster, and the returning dead as an invitation to explore ancestry, memory, and what continues to live within us from the past.
Through the Bean Sí, the supernatural landscape of Samhain, and Jungian psychology, we explore chaos not simply as disorder, but as a threshold—an encounter with the unknown from which transformation, renewal, and a deeper relationship with the psyche may emerge.
Join me Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin on this journey into the mysterious borderlands of Samhain. Through psychotherapy, depth psychology, Irish mythology, and folklore, we will encounter the Bean Sí as both an archetypal and ancestral figure, alongside the Púca, the wandering dead, and the fairy world—exploring how chaos, liminality, and encounters with the Otherworld illuminate the profound thresholds of psyche, transformation, and the unknown.
Themes We Explore Together
Themes explored include:
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The Bean Sí (The Banshee)
The mysterious Woman of the Sí, her place within Irish folklore, and her connection with death, prophecy, lamentation, and the Otherworld. -
Samhain in Irish Mythology & Folklore
Exploring Oíche Shamhna as a liminal time when the boundaries between the living, the dead, the fairy world, and the Otherworld became uncertain -
The Fairies & the Púca
Encounters with the Aos Sí, the shapeshifting Púca, returning spirits, and the supernatural beings believed to roam the landscape at Samhain. -
Chaos through a Jungian Lens
Exploring chaos, the unconscious, and transformation, alongside the Trickster and other archetypal figures that emerge when familiar structures and certainties begin to dissolve. -
Traditions & Customs of Samhain
Bonfires, offerings, divination, disguise, feasting, games, and the customs through which communities navigated this mysterious turning of the year. -
The Numinous & the Gaelic Otherworld
Exploring encounters with the sacred, mysterious, and unseen, and what the supernatural traditions of Samhain reveal about our relationship with mystery and the unknown. -
Sacred Time & the Threshold
Samhain as a time outside ordinary time, a borderland between endings and beginnings, where the old order gives way and the possibility of transformation emerges. -
Ancestral Memory
How the dead remained present within family, landscape, and cultural memory, and how Samhain traditions created space for remembrance, relationship, and continuing bonds with the ancestors.
“All I know is a door into the dark” - Seamus Heaney
This course is for you if…
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You are standing at a threshold in your own life, and feel drawn to explore uncertainty, change, and transformation through myth, folklore, and a Jungian lens.
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You are fascinated by Samhain and its ancient traditions, and wish to journey beyond modern Halloween into the deeper folklore of the dead, the fairies, divination, ritual, and the Gaelic Otherworld.
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You are drawn to the Bean Sí, the Púca, the Aos Sí, and the supernatural landscape of Ireland, and want to understand these mysterious figures within their cultural, ancestral, and mythological context.
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You are curious about chaos through a Jungian lens, and how encounters with the unknown, the unconscious, and the Trickster may emerge at times of psychological transition and transformation.
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You are interested in the numinous, liminality, and the unseen, and how myth and archetypal imagination can deepen our relationship with mystery without reducing these traditions to psychological explanations.
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You feel called toward reconnecting with Irish ancestral memory, Gaeilge, landscape, folklore, and tradition as sources of imagination, meaning, belonging, and a deeper relationship with the Gaelic Otherworld.
Remembering when the dead returned, the fairies roamed the land & the Otherworld drew near.
You will learn…
About the Bean Sí, ‘Woman of the fairy mounds’, and her place within Irish myth and folklore, gaining insight into how death, the supernatural, and encounters with the unseen were understood within a living Gaelic cultural and spiritual landscape. Together, we will explore the traditions of Samhain, when the boundaries between worlds became uncertain, the dead returned, the fairies roamed the land, and figures such as the shapeshifting Púca brought mischief, disruption, and unpredictability. Drawing from Jungian psychology, ancestral traditions, archival materials, mythology, storytelling, and conversations in Gaeilge with my neighbours in Connemara—where echoes of these traditions remain within the land and living memory—you will explore the Bean Sí as a threshold figure, the Púca and the Trickster archetype, and the deeper relationship between chaos, the unconscious, and transformation. Through the lens of the Gaelic Otherworld, we will consider what these ancient traditions may still teach us about crossing the borderlands of our own lives and meeting uncertainty, change, and the unknown.
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 - 4 points
A Depth Psychology Experience Rooted in the Irish Folklore and Mythology
Chaos at the Threshold online course and workshop is an immersive journey into the borderlands of soul and psyche. It weaves together sweeping visual footage of the Irish landscape with myth, folklore, storytelling, music, and ritual. Through encounters with the Bean Sí, the Púca, the wandering dead, and the fairy world of Samhain, we enter the mysterious terrain of the Gaelic Otherworld. Drawing upon Jungian depth psychology, we explore how these ancient figures and traditions can continue to speak to us today—illuminating the thresholds of our own lives, where certainty gives way to mystery, chaos opens the way to transformation, and the known world meets the unseen.
Begin the Journey
Book Your Seat
Lamenting
the Dead
Bean Chaointe | The Keening Woman
We explore the Bean Chaointe—the Keening Woman of Ireland—who stood at the threshold between worlds, keening for the dead and for the living alike. Through her, we encounter a way of giving voice to sorrow, rage, love, and all that cannot be spoken. Together, we consider how ritual and ancestral wisdom might support and guide us in meeting grief, loss, and the thresholds of transition. This course offers a space for reflection, cultural exploration, and embodied engagement with these traditions.
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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All workshops, courses, programs and digital products are designed to be a lifetime access. If you cannot attend a live event, all recordings are made available to you in an online course format. All sales are final and non-refundable.
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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.
About
Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin
BSocSc, MA Social Work, MA Psychotherapy, MA Irish Mythology and Folklore, 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. My 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 own personal development journey.