Thin Places Mystical Tours

10/13/2026

Story of “Hag’s Head” with a little help from the feathered neighbors.

10/12/2026

To all our friends in Canada. …

10/08/2026

The entrance onto the site of the Gaulstown Dolmen - a portal tomb dating back 5500 years. It’s located on private property in County Waterford.





Travel Hags

10/08/2026

GAULSTOWN DOLMEN - COUNTY WATERFORD
These photos are of me (Mindie) with the guests on our “Southern Edges” tour of thin places in Ireland. We stand in front of the Gaulstown dolmen - the bones of a portal tomb estimated to be 5500 years old. One can still walk inside it and stand in the actual burial site. where prior visitors have left offerings of coins, feathers, and crystals.

The dolmen sits in a clearing in a small woodland at the base of a hill known as “The Hill of the Hag” in what was once a ritual landscape of sacred sites established by the ancient people of this area.

Originally it was likely covered with a mound of stones and then covered again with dirt where grass would eventually grow making the tomb look like an entry in the earth - Mother Earth - a womb. Now only the shell remains.

The approach to this site is part of the experience. One crosses an open field and then enters a tunneled woodland path through brush and trees. The path turns to the right and suddenly - it’s there! Standing in a small clearing. It’s so quiet.

The weight of memory here is palpable. And the sense of standing in two worlds washes over the pilgrim who sees it for the first time. And I imagine the wonder is felt with every encounter.

I’ll be going back here.

10/04/2026

OCTOBER 4, 2026
800 years ago today, St. Francis of Assisi arrived in heaven. It’s a special anniversary for all Franciscans and a fitting time to recall the contributions of this remarkable man who was so much more than just an animal lover.

Francis was the son of a wealthy Assisi merchant, and he grew up in a privileged environment. After witnessing the violence of war and nearly dying from wounds he sustained in the war, Francis began to see the world differently.

He saw the workers in his father’s textile mill differently. He recognized the human needs of the poor and marginalized. And he was driven to help them.

He left home, rejected his father’s wealth, and started a spiritual community that eventually became one of the largest religious affiliations of men and women in the Christian world.

He never originally set out to found a great religious institution. He started with a tiny group trying to live the Gospel literally in poverty—and within his own lifetime it became an international movement.

His early companions wrote stories about Francis’ love of animals and all of creation stating he regarded wild and domestic animals as his “brothers and sisters.”

10/04/2026

Each October, whooper swans arrive in Ireland from Iceland after a flight of roughly eight hundred miles across the open Atlantic. They come in family groups, calling to one another as they fly, and settle on loughs, callows and flooded fields across the island for the winter.

A whooper is easy to tell from the mute swan, which stays all year. It carries its neck straight, wears a wedge of yellow on its bill and gives a loud trumpeting call that carries for miles across still water. Lough Foyle, Lough Neagh and the Shannon callows are among its well known winter places.

They leave again in March, and the old people took their going as a sign that the worst of winter was over. In Irish folklore swans were never harmed lightly, and the story of the Children of Lir, who spent nine hundred years as swans on the waters of Ireland, is still told to children.

09/30/2026

KINDRED SPIRITS MEMORIAL
Between 1843 and 1849, an estimated one million Irish perished from starvation, disease, and exposure. That was approximately 20% of the population. A million more emigrated to escape the conditions of the widespread famine.

In March 1847, an appeal arrived in Indian Territory from the Irish Relief Committee in Memphis. At the Choctaw Agency, in Oklahoma, U.S. Indian Agent William Armstrong read the appeal aloud to a gathering of Choctaw people, missionaries, traders and government officials. The circular described the terrible hunger in Ireland and appealed for food rather than sympathy. The Choctaw Nation remembered their own exile,sickness, and starvation suffered along the Trail of Tears. Those gathered at this reading about the suffering Irish contributed $170, a substantial portion of it given by the Choctaw themselves, most of whom had very little to give. (about $5000 in today’s currency)

To memorialize this generosity of the Choctaw nation, the Irish government erected this monument known as the”Kindred Spirits.” 9 eagle feathers (each uniquely crafted) erected in the shape of a bowl symbolizing both hunger and feeding the hungry, which was a significant tradition in the Choctaw culture. The sculpture (pictured here) sits in a park in County Cork.

It was dedicated in 2017 with President Mary Robinson and the Chief of the Choctaw Nation present. Irish representatives have also come to America to retrace the Trail of Tears as a tribute and remembrance of the tribes who suffered and died on the Trail.

This is such a moving monument.

It should also be noted that when Covid 19 swept through America, the Navaho Nation and the Hopi were severely stricken. A GoFundMe page was set up to raise funds for food and medical supplies. About 3 million was raised in the first few weeks and over $500,000 of that was pledged by the Irish. ☘️

09/27/2026

09/13/2026

I'm excited to return to Ardmore ... a very thin place. I'll be there the week after next. A poem written just after I returned from there ten years ago.

06/26/2026

I Toldja cows were dangerous.