The Healing Power of Nature

In partnership with TU Dublin and Green Foundation Ireland.

While this event is free, by making one of your tickets a ‘Supporter’s Ticket‘ you will be making a valuable contribution towards keeping future events accessible and towards the sustainable growth of Dublin Book Festival.

Join us for an inspiring afternoon of conversation with three authors whose books explore how nature positively impacts our well-being, and the importance of self-care in a fast-paced and challenging world. Exploring the wildlife, folklore and medicinal properties of common wild flowers and trees, Bridget Anna McNeill’s The Wild Within (Duckworth Books) is an immersive and enriching journey of recovery, healing and rewilding, one wild plant at a time. Dearbhla Mescal’s Finding Joy (Eriu) is a wise and heartfelt collection of poems, musings and prompts encouraging readers to slow down and notice the ordinary joy and calm to be found in the world around us. Miriam Mulcahy’s Walking to the Foot of the Sky (Eriu) charts Miriam’s story of walking the Beara Breifne Way. What began as a desire to experience the beauty of nature became a lyrical and life-changing journey through Irish landscape, history and renewal in the spaces where myth and memory linger. The authors join mindfulness expert, Maria Kenneally, in conversation.

Please note we may be capturing candid imagery at this event for use on our social media and website.

Brigit Anna McNeill is a writer, naturalist, herbalist, and wilderness guide whose work explores the meeting place of trauma, ecology, and the wild heart. Her essays and teachings weave science, story, and soul, with plants and wild places at their centre. She is the author of Bloom & Thrive: Essential Healing Herbs and Flowers and The Wild Within. She also writes the newsletter Into the Woods on Substack, shares her work with nearly 75,000 followers on Instagram @brigitannamcneill, and has contributed to Resurgence & Ecologist, The Green Parent, and the BBC’s Countryfile. Alongside her writing, she leads projects at the Sharpham Trust, supporting people to reconnect with the land and themselves. She lives on Dartmoor with her three sons, in a granite cottage surrounded by rivers, moss, and oak.

Having retired as a member of An Garda Sìochána, reared her three children, and experienced cancer, Dearbhla Mescal is now finding the time to follow her own dreams and enjoy her second act of life.

Miriam Mulcahy is a writer, journalist and editor who contributes to The Irish Times. Her first book, This is My Sea was a number one bestseller, nominated for an Irish Book Award and was an Irish Times book of the year. Walking to the Foot of the Sky has already hit the bestseller charts since its publication in May. She lives in Kildare with her children and her dog, Juno.

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