We are delighted to welcome new and familiar friends who will be sharing their stories with us at Herbfeast 2018
Anne McIntyre
Anne McIntyre FNIMH MCPP MAPA is a Fellow of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, a Member of the College of Practitioners of Phytotherapy, and a Member of the Ayurvedic Practitioners’ Association. Anne has trained as a herbalist, remedial masseuse, aromatherapist, homoepath and counsellor and has been in clinical practice working as a medical herbalist for over 35 years. For the last 30 years has incorporated Ayurvedic philosophy and medicine into her practice, producing an integrated approach to the care of patients and prescription of herbs.
Anne is the author of many books on herbal medicine and Ayurveda including The Complete Woman’s Herbal, Healing Drinks, The Complete Floral Healer, Herbal Medicine for Children: Western and Ayurvedic Perspectives, The Complete Herbal Tutor, The Ayurveda Bible and Dispensing with Tradition: A Guide to using Indian and Western Herbs the Ayurvedic Way.
Anne runs a busy practice in Gloucestershire and sees patients in London once a month. She lectures widely on herbal medicine and Ayurveda in the UK and America and runs courses from her home in Gloucestershire where she has a beautiful herb garden. She has an online course in
Brigid Mayes
Brigid is a medical herbalist living and practising near Mullingar in Co. Westmeath. She is currently exploring the Materia Medica of Gaelic physician Tadhg O Cuinn, a work completed in the year 1415.
Tadhg O Cuinn’s Materia Medica is one of a number of medical works written in Irish, based on Latin sources. They are testimony to the fact that Gaelic physicians educated themselves in the mainstream of European medical learning of the early Renaissance. Some of them, including Tadhg O Cuinn, studied in universities on the continent of Europe. Their translations of Latin works into Irish made this learning accessible to a wider readership in Ireland. The manuscripts were copied and used in medical schools here.
The Materia Medica of Tadhg O Cuinn includes 208 chapters on individual plants or plant-based materials used medicinally. 18 manuscript copies survive, all but three held in Ireland (in Trinity College Library, The National Library and the Royal Irish Academy). The work is now accessible to the reader unfamiliar with early modern Irish through a translation into English made in the 1990s by Micheal O Conchubhair and currently held in typescript in the School of Celtic Studies in Dublin.
Brigid will give an overview of the Materia Medica, looking at the range of plants included, their therapeutic uses and the guiding philosophy informing their use, their preparation and administration, and the context in which the Gaelic physicians exercised their profession. O Cuinn’s Materia Medica represents a rich strand in the history of plant-based medicine in Ireland.
An awareness of it can only deepen our sense of belonging to an old and ever-evolving tradition.
Richard Adams
Richard Adams MA (integrative medicine) Dip Phyt. MNIMH MCPP MBHMA is an established Medical Herbalist, or, Phytotherapist, with over 20 years of experience. He enjoys a general family practice, in Greenwich, London, that is informed by medical science but is essentially holistic in the Western tradition.
Alongside his herbal self care clinic, he has been training herbal medicine students since 1994. His work in this field culminated in the setting up of the Archway Clinic of Herbal Medicine on behalf of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists and Middlesex University; the training clinic for Britain’s first BSc Hons. Degree in Herbal Medicine.
Jim McDonald
Jim McDonald hails from Michigan in the United States, a land surrounded by the second largest freshwater lake system on the planet. He’s been practising the art of herbcraft since 1994, and offers a knowledge of herbalism that blends western folk and indigenous views of healing with the Vitalist traditions of 19th century western herbalism, presented through a blend of story, experience, humor, common sense and lore. He has taught classes and workshops throughout North America, hosts the website www.herbcraft.org, and has written for Plant Healer Magazine, the Journal of the Ontario Herbalists Association, and Llewelyn’s Herbal Almanac. He is currently writing (alternately) A Great Lakes Herbal & Foundational Herbcraft. jim is a community herbalist, a manic wildcrafter and medicine maker, and has been an ardent student of the most learned teachers of herbcraft… the plants themselves.
Eimear Burke
Eimear Burke RGN, BA, MSc. Couns Psych, MIACP, AFPsSI, and is a practising Druid and has been holding druidic ceremonies for many years and facilitates Rites of Passage, including weddings, handfastings, baby naming, welcoming ceremonies and passing ceremonies. She holds a private practice as a Registered Counselling Psychologist, Reiki & Seichem master and Shamanic therapist.
In her practice Eimear sees Adults, Adolescents, Children, Couples and Groups. She liaises and consults with many different disciplines, eg. GPs, Teachers, Community Psychiatric Nurses, Social Workers, Mental Health and Disability Advocates. She works as a supervisor with Psychotherapists, Psychologists, Social Workers, Advocates, Substance Abuse Workers. She is a guest lecturer on BA and MA courses in Development Studies both in Dublin and Tanzania.
Eimear is a practiced story-teller. She is a priestess of the Fellowship of Isis. Eimear a board member and Chairperson of the Childcare Advisory Committee of Barretstown which is an international residential Therapeutic Recreation Camp for children with serious illness. She is also a consultant psychotherapist with Smashing Times Theatre Company.
As a shamanic therapist, Eimear has trained with Slí an Chroi Shamanism which promotes a native Irish Shamanism, supported by contacts with Peruvian Q’ero/Inca Shamanism and has studied Herbalism at The Brighid’s Academy of the Healing Arts. She has studied Reiki, Secheim & Sakara (Tera-Mai) with Eileen Heneghan and finds that the practice of Reiki integrates well with psychotherapy, shamanic work and herbalism.
Beverley Gray
Beverley Gray is the author of, the national bestselling and award winning book, The Boreal Herbal: Wild Food and Medicine Plants of the North and A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants of Canada. She is a Canadian herbalist, aromatherapist, natural-health practitioner, journalist, and an award-winning natural health-product formulator. She owns the Aroma Borealis Herb Shop in Whitehorse, Yukon.
Dr Tom O’Brien PhD
Tom is an educator, researcher and herbalist. He has a PhD in adult education and has worked in the area of addiction and mental health for over twenty years. He qualified as an herbalist in 2012 and practices in Dublin. He is currently researching how herbal medicine combined with adult education can contribute to democracy.