About Me & My Practice

My name is Treasa Ní Chonchobhair and I am a Gaelic Polytheist residing in semi-urban north Alabama. I’m 31 years old and work as a freelance web designer while trying to make a living out of my fiction writing. This blog is meant to be fairly laid-back and mellow, sharing bits of my personal life (though not too personal) and my practice, and perhaps tossing in some book reviews, meaningful quotes, and and so forth.

My Gaelic Polytheist practice is a mixture of hearth-keeping and filidecht (‘poet-craft’). Being a hearth-keeper consists primarily of caring for my family, home, and the land around us. I’m blessed with a large extended family that spends a lot of time together. Some of us still reside under the same roof, but others are as far as a few miles away. Outside of my local family, I’m blessed with close friends and an amazing girlfriend whom I consider members of my extended family. I seek to fill every moment of my life with the culture, spirituality, and breath of my ancestors, and to have an existence positively dripping in poetry which muddles the sacred and mundane.

My standards for being a fili are fairly high; therefore while I seek to practice filidecht, I do not refer to myself as a fili. Tradition dictates that a fili should be able to compose on the spot, recite from memory, go through intense study lasting at least eight grades, and lots more. I am definitely not there myself and frankly, I don’t know of anyone who is.

NOTE:

From 2009-2013, I was the Uachtarán (President) [and briefly in 2014 I served as  Leas-Uachtarán (Vice President)] of Gaol Naofa, a Gaelic Polytheist organisation and community. While I still support the organisation’s efforts and wish them all the happiness and success, I am not longer a part of the organisation for personal reasons.

However due to my longstanding affiliation, I wish to remind readers/viewers that the opinions and thoughts shared on this blog in no way reflect Gaol Naofa nor the beliefs held by members of the organisation and community. They belong solely to me.