There’s a pandemic affliction of the soul running deep through our societies. It’s chronic and highly contagious. Its symptoms vary for different patients: a sense of constant wandering, a lack of connection to place and to others, a lack of community, a restless hunger for short-term pleasures at the expense of the long-term, and atheism. Viral apathy.

One of the chief causes of this spirit sickness is the modern person’s lack of roots. So many of us, whether physically or ideologically, have been ripped out of the soil of our ancestral traditions and replanted in the anemic sands of a world that views much of the past as a curious meme at best, and as something to destroy at worst. To be sure, much of the past is stained by bloodshed, malice, and the long history of humanity’s greed, warfare, and fear. Wisdom calls us to sift the wheat from the chaff. If we don’t—if we discard the entire harvest—we will starve. And we are starving. In our ravenous hunger for meaning, we are trying to fill our soul-gullets with any passing addiction and entertainment that will numb the pain.

There’s another way. A way back home. A way to plant our roots back into the rich, black soil of the ancestral soul.

The Irish Pagan Book of Rites is part of that way home. It’s a guidebook for all those in the family of Irish Paganism—yes, for all whether born into it by Irish citizenship, genetics, immigrant heritage, or coming from the diverse tapestry of humanity and have chosen for themselves to be adopted into this family.

Many in the Irish Pagan family find themselves in a spirituality striving to recreate what they can from what seem like scattered fragments of monastic medieval manuscripts, ogham inscriptions, and linguistic conjecture. Still more can they reap from the rich folk traditions which centuries of Christianity and foreign oppression could never quite extinguish from the Irish people. The Irish Pagan is confronted by a diverse amount of sources, some quite nebulous. There is much to glean in theory, but little in praxis.

The Irish Pagan Book of Rites fills that void. The Irish Pagan can open it and begin praying to the Gods and making ancestrally appropriate offerings the same day they pick it up—and they can do so in the beautiful, ancestral language of the Irish people themselves. Each ritual and prayer is presented with the English on one side and the Irish language on the other. Devotees are invited to lift up the prayers of these pages in the very same language as generations of Irish spoke and through their own acts of praying in Irish, may do their part to help foster the language for generations to come.

The rituals contained in The Irish Pagan Book of Rites are each prefaced by a thorough explanation of the rite’s background, its sources, any tools it may call for, and the intention behind it. The rites find their inspiration and, in certain parts direct quotations, from several sources, including the Lebor Gabála Érenn (the Book of Invasions), the Metrical Dindshenchas, the Settling of the Manor of Tara, and Carmichael’s Carmina Gadelica. Standing on the shoulders of these texts and the rich folkloric traditions of Ireland, the prayers are assembled from the experience of years of devotion and practice to give the devotee a wide range of rites to incorporate into their spiritual practice.

The book begins with three preparatory rites that a devotee may perform as a way to ready themselves  for the rite to follow, or for grounding and spiritual cleansing. After this, the main Rite of the Grove, or Deasghnáth an Neimhidh, is introduced. This is the central ritual, and is given as a beautiful framework for regularly making offering to the Gods, Ancestors, and Land. There are then included rites for the consecration of water, blessing of a house, and rituals for the four great fire festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine, and Lughnasadh.

This guidebook will help the devotee rediscover the beauty and balance found in the ancestral way. For “by realigning ourselves with the Gods, with our Ancestors, and with the good spirits of the Land, we place ourselves in right order with the worlds, and assert with our words and actions the power to make holy again what has otherwise become corrupted by the forgetfulness of the unbalanced world” (The Irish Pagan Book of Rites).

John Michael McLoughlin is an Irish-American writer and author of Pagan Portals: The Irish Pagan Book of Rites, as well as several magazine articles, most prominently featured in Witches & Pagans magazine.

Nourished and fascinated by the stories of his Irish and Scandinavian family since childhood, he is an avid researcher and devotee of traditional Irish, Norse, and Judaic spirituality and lore.
McLoughlin is also an ardent language lover, having studied Irish (Gaeilge), Hebrew, German, and French since adolescence, adding Latin and Classical Greek to the mix while at university. He embraces the adage that “the best way to learn is to teach”, and has taught Hebrew, Irish, and Latin from second grade up to adult levels.

McLoughlin lives on the shores of Lake Superior, where he spends his non-writing time on a good cup of coffee, playing music, or going for a hike through the beautiful north Minnesota woods.

For more details: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/moon-books/authors/john-mcloughlin