Rite to Freedom goes to Ireland
I travelled to Ireland in 1998, living on the Dingle Peninsula for almost a year, looking for a new adventure; new life. The contrast from the streets of central London to the west coast of Co. Kerry couldn’t have been more dramatic and life changing. My recovery from drugs and alcohol had found solid ground. The mountains and ocean of the Dingle Peninsula gave me a new compass point and grounding to go deeper, beyond the chemical recovery I had established. The emotional impact the landscape had on me kickstarted the long journey into my addictions around sex, love, work and food. The land that surrounded me day and night, reshaped me.
I created a regular cabaret night in Dingle’s oldest pub, Tigh Mac Cárthaigh. We told stories and played traditional music out the back of this fine old bar. The wind howled and the rain hammered down on the old corrugate iron roof pretty much every night.
I took this creation back to England and turned it into a professional touring outfit. This in turn led to a number of commissions to write radio dramas for the BBC. That led to my first publishing deal and the publication of my memoir. This book became the springboard for Rite to Freedom.
A few years back, two fellers from the west of Ireland came over to England to attend one of our residentials on Dartmoor. They were passionate about the work. They were keen to bring Rite to Freedom to Ireland. After the restrictions of the pandemic were lifted, we headed over to deliver our first event in Co. Mayo. A beautiful gathering on a cold February day. I was touched that so many of our Irish sisters and brothers turned up. I’d been holding a quiet vision for over twenty years to bring something back to the land of my ancestors, a country that had given me so much support in my recovery.
The energy began to flow. A private donor gave us some seed funding. We began to look for a site to hold the residentials. We employed someone on the ground to get the word out.
And now, at last we’re about to begin our first retreat at The Boghill Centre, Co. Clare, our ‘New Tribes’ residential for those in established addiction recovery.
This feels like an auspicious start to what we hope will be a long-term unfolding of our work in Ireland. We’ll follow the same model of inviting and training previous participants to become future staff and facilitators. The feedback we’re getting is that this is wanted and needed. Coming back to Ireland to offer this gift after all these years on the road, learning and healing, is a real privilege; something I’ve been waiting and wanting to do since that beautiful season of storytelling and music in Tigh Mac Cárthaigh in Dingle.
‘New Tribes’ Residential - October 21-23 - https://ritetofreedom.org.uk/newtribe-retreats
Photos by Colm Mahon