Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld | A Journey of Individuation & Ancestral Healing
Live WORKSHOP & Course THREE
Lamenting the Dead
Bean Chaointe | The Keening Woman
Irish Ancestral Rituals of Death, Grief, and the Gaelic Otherworld
Sunday, June 28th 2026
9am - 1pm PST | 10am - 2pm MST | 11am - 3pm CST | 12pm - 4pm EST
5 pm - 9 pm IST (Irish Standard Time)
This is the third course in the six-part Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld series.
It can be taken as part of the course series or standalone.
An Invitation
I invite you into an older understanding of grief—one held within Irish ancestral tradition, where the visible and invisible worlds are deeply intertwined. We meet the Bean Chaointe, the Keening Woman, whose role extended far beyond mourning. Through her voice, gestures, and presence, she carried both spiritual and social authority, expressing grief in a powerful, culturally understood language.
To those outside the tradition, her expression could seem wild and untamed; to those within it, it was a deeply embodied language of grief—felt in the body, shared in community, and essential to the passage between worlds. To encounter her is to return to deeper layers of Ireland’s traditions around death and dying, where grief, land, voice, and the unseen are intimately connected. Together, we explore how death is held alongside life, how ritual can support us in meeting loss, and how ancestral wisdom may guide us across thresholds—into a deeper relationship with both grief and life.
Rooted in Irish Myth & Ancestral Memory
In Ireland, the land was imagined as a living goddess—feeling, responsive, and sovereign—and the Gaelic Otherworld, ever-near, was shaped through feminine voice and expression. Within this landscape, the Bean Chaointe emerges as part of an ancient lineage of women who gave voice to grief, guided the dead between worlds, and held the living in their sorrow.
We trace keening back to its earliest echoes in pre-Christian times. Through ancient myth and oral tradition, we encounter what is remembered as the first caoine—the first lament on this island—a cry of grief woven into Ireland’s spiritual and cultural life. As mná caoine, their voices and movements carried profound authority, helping to guide the deceased from the realm of the living into that of the ancestors.
Though these traditions have largely fallen silent, their echoes remain—in story, in memory, and perhaps in something still felt within us. This course invites you to listen for those echoes, and to consider what they might offer us now in meeting grief, loss, and the thresholds of our own lives.
The Heart of This Course
This course explores 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. This is a journey of soul and spirit, where poetry, the Irish language, myth, and folklore are interwoven with Jungian psychology and psychotherapy into a deeply visceral exploration of grief and loss. Here, 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.
It is not a grief therapy program or a substitute for clinical support, but an exploration of grief and loss through the lens of Irish ancestral knowledge. Dedicated, therapy-based grief programs will be offered at a later stage, building on the foundations of this work.
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 explore her voice, gesture, and presence, both spiritual and social authority, expressing grief in a powerful and culturally understood language.
Themes We Explore Together
Themes explored include:
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The Bean Chaointe (The Keening Woman)
Her place within her community through the lens through social, cultural and psychological perspectives. -
The Gaelic Otherworld in Irish Mythology & Folklore
The importance of liminal thresholds in this tradition and the ‘thin veil’ between the living and the dead. -
The Caoine (Keening Practice)
Archival accounts of death and grief rituals, alongside recordings of keening, laments in Gaeilge, and the songs that date back centuries. -
Grief Through a Jungian Lens
Here we explore grief and loss through a depth psychology and psychotherapy lens, interwoven with Irish myth and folklore. -
Rituals of Death and the Irish Wake
Traditions of mourning in Ireland, including recordings from my Connemara community in Gaeilge (with translation) on customs and practices. -
The Numinous in Grief and the Otherworld
We will explore, through the bean chaointe how encounter with the sacred and mysterious plays its own healing role in grief, loss and transformation. -
Sacred Time and Ritual
How grief opens us beyond linear time into a liminal threshold cyclical ‘deep time’ and how ancestral rituals can support and accompany us at life transitions. -
Reconnecting with Ancestral Wisdom
How these ancient practices and cultural memory can support us today in deepening our understanding of life, grief and belonging.
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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You are experiencing grief or loss—whether recent or long-held—and feel drawn to explore it through myth, folklore, and an ancestral lens, while understanding this is not a therapeutic or clinical support space.
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You feel called toward ancestral and cultural approaches to mourning, and are curious about how grief has been held within community and ritual.
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You are drawn to Irish mythology, folklore, and the Gaelic Otherworld, and want to explore their relationship to death, grief, and transition.
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You are interested in the figure of the bean chaointe, her role within community, and what these traditions might offer us today—where voice, body, and emotion are welcomed.
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You accompany others in grief and are seeking to expand your perspective beyond clinical frameworks into cultural and symbolic approaches.
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You feel a quiet pull toward reconnecting with Irish ancestral memory, the language (Gaeilge), and tradition—and wish to explore how these living threads might support you in meeting grief and loss.
Remembering the women who guided the living through their grief & the dead between worlds.
You will learn…
The role of the Bean Chaointe and the practice of keening within Irish myth, folklore, and pre-Christian tradition—gaining insight into how death and loss were once held within a living cultural and spiritual framework. You will be invited to consider how grief connects the body, the land, and the unseen world, and to encounter the Gaelic Otherworld, the concept of the numinous, and the role of ritual and sacred time in times of transition. Through archival materials, recordings, and interviews with native Irish speakers in Connemara—where many of these rituals remain alive in living memory—you will deepen your understanding of how these traditions continue to resonate today.
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
4-hour LIVE Workshop on June 28th with Group Reflection and Dialogue
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
Lament the Dead online course & workshop is an immersive, embodied journey of soul and psyche, weaving sweeping images of Irish Landscape, myth, folklore, music, poetry and ritual to reflect on ways these practices may support you and those you accompany in times of loss, and to reconnect with the enduring wisdom of ancestral traditions.
Begin the Journey
Book Your Seat
Lamenting
the Dead
Bean Chaointe | The Keening Woman
Live Workshop - June 28, 2026
9 am – 1 pm (PST) | 10 am – 2 pm (MST) | 11 am – 3 pm (CST) | 12 pm – 4 pm (EST)
5 pm – 9 pm (Irish ST) Ireland and UK | 6 pm – 10 pm (CEST) Amsterdam / Berlin / Paris / Madrid
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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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, 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.