Ireland – May 2026 – Hill of Uisneach – Bealtaine Festival

My birthday present in May 2026 was a visit to my father’s ancestral home in Westmeath, Ireland, timed for the fire festival on the Hill of Uisneach. After a tough year, Jim’s cancer treatments weighed heavily. We questioned whether we could climb the hill together, but hoped the journey would restore us.

Locals claim the Bealtaine fire festival on this hill is the oldest in Ireland. Fires are ignited on sacred hills, creating a single “fire eye” over the island, symbolising the country’s emergence from the cold darkness of winter into the light. On Bealtaine eve, every household fire across Ireland was extinguished, and people waited in the dark for the single spark from Uisneach. The next day, they would gather the hot ash to rekindle their own hearth fires.

With my ancestors, the Tumalty/Tumelty tribe, having lived just down the road in Creggy, I imagine they not only knew of the fire ceremonies but were active players, perhaps as storytellers, poets or fire tenders. My great, great-grandfather died in the workhouse in Ballymahon. Drawn to the hill to mark the turning of the seasons. I hoped to reclaim some optimism after a long, wet, cold winter in Portugal, a period of fear and worry for Jim.

Our layers of thin sweaters and warm coats gave us some protection against the chilly wind. Hats and gloves purchased from a local charity shop completed our outfits. I wished I’d had the courage to dust glitter on my face and tuck small daisies into my grey silver hair under my woolly hat.

A bus from the field of parked cars ferried us a short distance up the hill to the festival arena, where a stage of musicians, a tent with storytellers, street-food stalls, traditional craft stands, and a bookshop filled our day.

We had wondered whether we would be the oldest festival goers. We weren’t the only ones without flowing cloaks, flowers in our hair or Viking headdresses.

Against a large tree was a tribute to the Westmeath writer Manchán Magan, who died of cancer in October 2025. His book Ninety-nine Words for Rain (and One for Sun) had greeted me (alongside a lemon drizzle cake) on arrival in our Airbnb. He lived in a grass-roofed house in an oak woodland with goats, honey bees, and hens, in rhythm with the land. His gift was to open and inhabit new realms of being through the Irish language and folklore. His poetic reverence for how our ancestors perceived other realms and welcomed change through ceremony connects me to my inner knowing.

For most of my life, I’ve sustained and nourished myself by growing food, surrounding myself with books, and cultivating deep human connections through community. Living on a hill in Portugal looks different outwardly, but the same inner longings and feelings for the turning of the seasons soothe and rattle my nervous system. My food forest, planted in 2025, is part of an experiment in living, surviving, and thriving in an uncertain and changing climate seeking connection and comfort in the cyclical changes of nature. Although our cisterna is dry, winter rains have turned our land into a temporary holy well.

We lay on the crowded grassy bank, listening to harp, pipe and drum as people climbed over us and many danced. I had a sense of being home, of knowing the people, the hill, and the ceremonies.

Wandering the festival stalls after lunch, I discovered Ger Moane’s book Keeper of the Stones. It is a coming-of-age novel, set in ancient Ireland near Newgrange. I had promised myself I would not buy any more books, but it pulled me in, and I bought it as my new novel follows a cat’s journey of connection and discovery as she visits ancient standing stones in Portugal.

We relaxed as the old birdman, in Anglo-Saxon regalia with long grey hair and a beard, handled his hawks and other birds of prey.

Later, we mingled with owls, wolfhounds and white horses with plaited tails, then strolled up the slope toward the bonfire waiting to be lit at dusk. We stopped and watched a hand-fasting, ceangal na lámh ceremony, binding couples together.

Around eight in the evening, a procession of light and fire formed at the base of the hill. Women in white, flowing dresses honoured Brighid as both a pagan goddess and a Christian saint. Performers in costume evoked the traditions of Ireland’s high kings as a symbol of Celtic migration and gathering.

Once the procession reached the stacked wood, the old stories of protection from evil were recalled, and blessings were extended for the season ahead. Manchán Magan called his cancer an evil that infects the body. Jim calls it a “bloody nuisance” as his tennis mornings are over for the moment and his sleep is disrupted.

We remained on the low edge-way at the bottom of the hill, letting the procession pass. When the revellers were out of sight, we heard the horns and screams as the ‘mother fire’ was lit. Crackling flames rose into the failing light. I felt a silence and presence within the noise, merging two dimensions, the present and the ancestral.

Tiredness soon overtook us, so while the ‘hooley’ continued, we walked to the bus. A couple of mothers with sleeping babies were already seated. I made eye contact with an American woman about my age, with glitter on her face, visiting the Hill from California for the first time.
“You’re not alone when you observe Bealtaine,” she said, sharing her ancestral immigrant story of famine, eviction, and loss.

I returned on day two, alone, as Jim was exhausted, and joined a tour to the top of the hill. We passed the warm ashes on the way to the Cat Stone, a six-metre-tall (20-foot) limestone rock steeped in myth. Believed to be the ‘navel’ of Ireland, Ail na Míreann (“stone of the divisions”) is said to mark where the province borders meet. The wind was light, and the 360-degree panoramic view from the Hill’s summit spanned counties. We stopped at several points on the ascent, and our guide pointed out the Hill of Tara, the seat of the High Kings of Ireland.

A few people were already meditating on the bank beside the stone. I removed my shoes and socks to feel the earth and slowly circled the rock, laying my hands out on the warm surface. I remembered why I now live on an ancient limestone hill in Portugal, where improving the red hard soil is not easy, but ultimately roots me and restores me. Jim feels it too.

The ground felt cool and inviting.

Cat Stone Hill of Uisneach 2026