Our Story
Biography
Eibhlín/Helen, a celtic sculptress and feminine maker – who’s medium of expression is the numinous bog oak. Her servitude to this sacred wood – ranges from large scale public art installations to more poignant sculptures rousing many interior designers to take note. Eibhlín has also sculpted impassioned pret-a-porter jewellery collections, for which she has won an award of ‘Jewellery Designer of the Year’. Celtic Roots was established in 1990 and has been based in Ballinahown, County Westmeath, Ireland since 1998. The wood with which Eibhlín works is sourced from Lough Boora, County Offaly. Her impactful and more sizable pieces are made to commission and include Metamorphosis (2011) a wall-mounted piece for Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, which relates the curved forms of bog oak to sound waves./Helen
The keepers of mysteries, the medicine women, the story keepers and story tellers, the holy magicians, the wild warriors, the original ones, the ones who carry the ancients within the marrow of your bones, the ones forged in the fires, the ones who have bathed in their own blood, the heroines who wear their scars as stars, the ones who give birth to their visions and dreams, the ones who weep and howl upon the holy altars, the avatars, the mothers, maidens and crones, the mystics, the oracles, the artists, the musicians, the virgins, the sensual and sexual, the women of our world.
I honor you. I stand for you and with you. I celebrate both your autonomy and our sisterhood of One. We are many. We are fierce. We are tender. We are the change agents and we are radically holding and clearing space for the bursting forth of the holy seeds of the collective conscience and consciousness. We are manifestors and flames of purification and transformation. We are living our lives in authenticity, vulnerability, transparency and unapologetically. We are committed to integrity, impeccability, accountability, responsibility and passionate love.
We are here on purpose, with purpose and give no energy to conformity, acceptance or approval. We are the daughters of the earth and the courageous of the cosmos. Priestess, keep living your life passionately, raising the cosmic vibrations and lowering your standards for no one. You are brazenly blessed and a force of nature. Nurture yourself and one another. You are a crystalline bridge between realms and uniting heaven and earth. You are a priestess and you are divinely anointed, appointed and unstoppable.”
― Mishi McCoy
The Great Oak
This project featured right Millenium Sculpture (2000) and The Great Oak (2012), a ten metre wall-mounted installation at Ballivor School, were achieved with the support of Percent for Arts Scheme. Sculptress Eibhlín has also made several notable liturgical pieces, including a tabernacle and baptismal font (2011) for Ballymachugh Church, County Cavan. This tabernacle is made from bog yew, carved and burnished, yet retaining the original archetype of appearance of the tree. Eibhlín has worked in public and private collections, including the headquarters of the EU Presidency in Brussels, and several of her slighter exemplars of sculptures – have been presented to visiting dignitaries, including Bill Clinton, Barack Obama (2012), and Xi Jin Ping, President of China (2012).
“We must come to understand our past, our history, in terms of the soil and water and forests and grasses that have made it what it is.” – William Vogt, Road to Survival, 1948
Oak Bogwood - a Deity to the Earth
There is a disturbance, disquiet, and anxiety that seems to live in the human soul of today – reflections of a deep internal hungering? We often aimlessly dwell in this fragmented postmodern world – like displaced outcasts wandering looking for an inner heartland, isolated from our origins – our primordial roots. We seem to have lost our way in this extraordinary macrocosm.
Embark on a journey with Eibhlín and this remarkable timeworn wood. Eibhlín can give you guidance on re-gaining a sense of kinship with the natural world and guide you in discovering your creative ancestral heredities. Eibhlín shares her revelations from a gathered sphere of early divinations – wise spiritual illuminations from an abundant Celtic heritage in addition to precise and cutting edge, scientific analysis.
It is through this journeying that we can discover the bog oaks true legacy – panacea. Perhaps it serves as an intentional remedy for our wandering ills – or a reminder for us to establish an accord with our inner heartland – or a stir to live alongside our innate creativity. Whichever one it might be for you, we hope the wood will shepherd you there.
“We have forgotten that we were born of celestial cataclysm. We have forgotten how to dance bare-footed on the earth to the cadence of our souls. we have forgotten the ritual fires and the acrid tang of holy smoke on our tongues.”
― Beth Morey, Night Cycles: Poetry for a Dark Night of the Soul
Cé leis thú? To whom do we belong?
‘That which we can see is the visible, that which we cannot see is the invisible. Within us and around us is an invisible world; this is where each of us comes from. There is always the reminder that invites us to explore and seek out the concealed depths. We know the real nature of things is hidden deep within. When you enter the world you come to live on the threshold between the visible and invisible. This is precisely what kindles our longing and the hunger to belong.’ – John O’ Donoghue.
I am both a sculptress, a feminine maker and a pilgrim on this threshold that John O Donoghue talks about in – Exploring our Hunger to Belong.
I am of the pilgrim people, here to master the epistle and tidings of these woods – I am on a journey – to be taught how to honour and preserve the dignity of all life forms the visible and the unseen, therein lies my sagacity – and my why and therefore. – Eibhlín
The Roots of Celtic Roots
From Eibhlín/Helen;
‘When I first saw the bog it was like a necropolis of trees – forlorn, perturbed, and weeping. In Pre-Christian times these sacred trees were revered. As I began to apprehend their humble antiquity – I could sense the woods’ healing vibrations in my bones – so soulful and ancient, intertwined with deeper messages – messages that it would take me some more years to discern fully.
There is a five-thousand year old energy ingrained in this sacramental wood. When I am labouring with it – I have to respect that energy. Bogwood is a beautiful but difficult material – like stone it is hard to carve – due to its tenacity and density. I peel off layers of insulating bark. I reveal the flow of the visceral roots and release the form that I sense within. Working with this earthly wood, this tangible and palpable material, has been my journey. That’s where I can be found – in the roots.’
“Women have always cradled within their bodies secret mysteries of life, death, and rebirth and the healing, grounding, and balancing powers of our Mother in the Earth. We have held these mysteries sacred within us as we would carry babies in our wombs.”
― Elizabeth Eiler, Singing Woman: Voices of the Sacred Feminine
