This piece (below) was actally the introduction to a Facebook post from six years ago which I’d linked back to the Irish Imbas website. I’ve since made the original article private but it’s probably a timely reminder to revisit the issue given the gradual decline of Wicca and its displacement by a more ‘Oirish’ branded Paganism.

Generic, ‘spiritually-themed’ religions tend to come and go with relative frequency. Often, this is because the commercial drivers behind them eventually reveal the lack of cultural authenticity and the lack the ‘resonance’ or ‘staying power’ of larger /mainstream religions (i.e. which you can probably inteprete as having been introduced with the force of a government or other power base behind them).

I’ll probably do a post on that soon through Patreon and the website.

Years ago, while waiting to be served at a bar in Glandore, I met a pair of witches over on holiday from England. After they told me that, they both kind of stood there waiting, clearly expecting a bit more of a reaction.

What they couldn’t have known, of course, was that over the years in West Cork, we’ve seen waves of foreign new-agers, alternative life-stylers, hippies and artists come and go, all with different belief systems and claims. Having someone tell me they were a witch wasn’t really that shocking. Once, someone in Bellydehobb insisted he was a robot. Another person I went fishing with was convinced he was half-rock. It gets a bit weird down there sometimes.