Keening

A Living Tradition

A Living Tradition

An 8-week experiential journey and educational course into the Keening traditions of Scotland & Ireland

1st October - 19th November, 2026
Thursdays at 10:30am PDT / 6:30pm BST

ENROLL NOW

May our time together draw us into the depths of our hearts, where love and grief intertwine, and where we touch the mystery of the unseen realms.

what is

Keening?

In this Weaving Remembrance offering, we return to ancient practices that once held grief and the rite of passage of death within the heart of the community.

Within this course we will learn about Keening – a raw, embodied lament that lives in the bones of Irish and Scottish tradition.

We will learn about the history and context of keening, and the difference between keening and laments. We will listen to keening sounds, stories, and Celtic perspectives, and share our experiences within a held community space.

The Keen is a vocal expression of grief, part cry and part song, offered at the thresholds of death. Traditionally heard at wakes, funeral processions, and gravesides, it arose from deep presence and embodied knowing. Women, often kin or hired keeners, would gather to call forth sorrow through wailing, chant, and improvised melody.

This was not performance, but invocation: a weaving of grief, memory, and love into sound. The Keen served as a bridge, carrying the soul onward, uniting the community in mourning, and giving voice to what words alone could not hold.

Though nearly silenced by cultural suppression, the spirit of keening endures and lives on.

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My Spot

Our Guides

Madge
Bray

Mary
McLaughlin

Phyllida
Anam-Áire

Sionnáin

Hanna Leigh

Lana
Lanaia

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This course is a heartfelt container for exploring the themes of keening and lamenting, grief and love, death and life.

Together, we will explore the sounds of grief, remembering how to be with sorrow, how to honor what has passed, and how to listen to what still wants to be heard.

COME AS

You Are...

We begin with the breath. We begin in the place where grief and love meet.

Though severely diminished, the old ways have never died and are now being repaired and revived. We are reweaving the broken threads.

This course brings together some of our respected elders and tradition keepers from Ireland & Scotland, who are working deeply with the revival of these ancestral keening and grief-tending traditions.

It includes learning and receiving historical teachings, keening songs, stories, Celtic perspectives, and grief-tending rituals.

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My Spot

What You'll Receive

May this series touch our hearts & awaken remembrance of our original ways through:

8 × 2-Hour Live Weekly Classes

Join respected elders and wisdom keepers for a weekly 2-hour live experiential workshop.

2 × 2-Hour Community Calls

We gather for 2 community cauldron sessions in our 8 weeks together to share our hearts.

Wisdom for our Modern Times

Experience old ancestral practices to meet grief as a transformative and spiritual journey.

Online
Community Space

Access to a private community space to share what is moving for you through the 8 weeks.

Course
Recordings

You'll have access to the course content for 1 year on our private course & community platform.

Past Student Reviews

"The opportunity to sit with elders from around the world was incredible. The heartfelt sharing of the songs, both vocally and through the bagpipes, will live in my soul forever. Being included in these traditions is deeply healing for me, and I thank you (all of you) for extending the effort to reach out around the world to those of us in diaspora and invite us into relationship with you."

~ Malama, Course Participant 25'
"This course was life altering for me in so many ways. In the first week of this course, I ended up booking a ticket back to Ireland, and I hadn't been back in 30 years... I used the strength of this course, and of Mary and everyone in the course to allow me to go back. The life changing aspect - I never expected it, but the courage that I found within myself is perfect. I'm so, so grateful."

~ Helen, Course Participant 24'
"Thank you so much for this so wonderful warm evening with the Keening Ladies… it is still flowing through me deeply."

~ J.A., Workshop Participant
"This course is something that I will always hold in admiration, because I've discovered that my grief doesn't have to be something that holds me back... doing this in community is such a bigger impact. When one person grieves, it gives us all permission to grieve and we don't even have to necessarily understand what it is we're grieving in that moment."

~ S.R., Course Participant 24'
"Hanna Leigh helps people to connect more deeply with earth by bringing together teachers of traditional song, story and craft. Her work helps those yearning for ancestral European wisdom to recover what has been forgotten. She has been deeply influenced by her own experiences in Ancestral Lineage Healing. This is NOT TO BE MISSED!!"

~ Nala Walla, Grief Tender & Ancestral Healing Guide
"This course has been especially humbling for me. It really helped catalyze something and open my heart again to all those hidden, accumulated pockets of grief in my life and body. It also helped affirm grief as one of my superpowers."

~ Vanessa, Course Participant 24'
"At the intro workshop for this course, I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by depth of knowledge and powerful presence of these women. I knew immediately that I wanted to spread the word to all of you who are thirsty for the deeper wellsprings of ancient traditions. For all those interested in reviving our rituals for grieving, this is an amazing opportunity to study with living elders and experts in the field."

~ L.P., Workshop Participant
"I am writing to say a deep thank you for yesterday's Keening workshop, and the introduction to your upcoming 'Keening: A Living Tradition' course. I sat here at 4am joining the call live from Melbourne, Australia, and was touched by everything shared."

~ A.M., Workshop Participant
"Yes, yes, yes - deep soul resonance to this rich multifaceted weave Phyllida 💕 Such liberating truth and depth. Sounding through the altars of our body. Thank you."

~ S.L., Workshop Participant
"This is incredible. So much wisdom and compassion here. What a gift that Mary McLaughlin & Phyllida Anam-Áire bring 💕 What power."

~ S.J., Workshop Participant
"Phyllida is such an inspiring woman. I hope I am like this at the elder stage of my life ❤️🙏. powerful gnosis and perspective on life."

~ S.L., Workshop Participant
"I am sitting now in stunned silence, after going to this Zoom workshop on "Keening", (which is an ancient Irish means of dealing with grief). This workshop had over 100 women from all over the world. I even felt like I was in Ireland! Whoa. So Deep. I am so blissed out from experiencing such deep grief."

~ C.M., Workshop Participant

This Course Is For You If...

  • You feel called to learn about the ancestral keening traditions from Ireland & Scotland
  • You desire to bring ancient practices into your life
  • You are seeking a sacred space to explore grief in a welcoming community
  • You're moved by the healing power of vocal expression and communal lament
  • You wish to deepen your understanding of grief as a transformative and spiritual journey
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Us Here
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“Know dear one
The song of death
Dreams the birth of creation
As beloved life
Embraces your heart
She is planning on leaving
In the heart
Of the seed there
Hides the fullness of mystery
In the same seed
Hides the destroyer
Of all that is created
So live within
The heart of death
And die fully into birth.”

– Phyllida Anam-Áire

Program Overview

This course runs for 8 weeks from 1st October to 19th November.

Every Thursday, we have a live class with a guest teacher. On Monday, 5th October we will have a bonus community cauldron call. All calls except for the community cauldron calls are recorded.

All live sessions commence at 10:30am PDT (Los Angeles) / 1:30pm EDT (New York) / 6:30pm BST (London) and are 2 hours long.

Thursday, 1st October

WEEK 1 

The History of the Irish Keen

with Mary McLaughlin

We begin our 8-week journey by arriving together, settling into our shared space and opening the container with intention.

Elder Irish song teacher Mary McLaughlin will then guide us through an overview of the ancient Irish keening tradition: its history, cultural roots, and the context in which grief and remembrance were expressed in Ireland. This is a tradition that has existed for millennia and, though diluted, still lives on and is being revived in Irish culture. 

Monday, 5th October

WEEK 2

Community Cauldron

with Sionnáin & Lana Lanaia

A guided, held container within which to be heard, felt and moved by our love, grief, longing and belonging.

This call will not be recorded.

Thursday, 8th October

WEEK 2

The Ritual of Lament

with Mary McLaughlin

The focus in this class is on how the Irish keen was performed in the 17th & 18th century. It describes the ritual that was in place, how the community were involved, and how the keening women in that era led the rite of passage within the container of the wake and funeral.

Thursday, 15th October

WEEK 3

The Pibroch and the Keening

Scotland Grieves its Losses

with Madge Bray

The highland bagpipe pibroch  lament played by a lone piper on the castle battlements remains an iconic “shortbread tin” image of Scotland which resonates worldwide.

In this workshop, we will explore Scotland’s bagpipe and keening traditions as an ancient container for grief and loss and consider its relevance to today’s crisis of belonging.

Thursday, 22nd October

WEEK 4

Lamentation in our Scot’s Folk Music Tradition

with Madge Bray

Handed down over countless generations our traditional Scot’s “Sangstream” has sustained and nourished us through centuries of inter generational grief loss and human displacement.

In this workshop we will explore its provenance through vocal laments lullabies and love songs which comprise the essence of our song tradition.

Thursday, 29th October

WEEK 5

The Call of the Cailleach

Returning to The Currach of Belonging

with Sionnáin

Cumha & Cuimhneamh. Longing & Remembering. Our inevitable destiny with the Cailleach.

An imramma (guided journey) into the memory held in our salty tears, moved by life, touched by remembrance and held in tenderness.

With songs to move you from longing to belonging, held so gently in the arms of the ancient ones.

Thursday, 5th November

WEEK 6

A Tear at the Center of Creation

with Phyllida Anam-Áire

Held within old Irish poetry are words that reach into the soul and invite the movement of our internal waters, inviting us to reflect on our personal relationships with grief. This class is a journey into the heart, and the holy tears that flow from the center of Creation.

Drawing from the well of her Celtic tradition, Phyllida will be sharing poetry and inviting inner contemplation. This will be woven with an exploration into sound, and the importance of sounding our internal experiences ~ which is at the heart of keening.

Thursday, 12th November

WEEK 7

Rivers of Grief & Love

with Phyllida Anam-Áire

Phyllida will be sharing stories from her own decades of life experience in accompanying those through dying, death and the journey of the soul. Weaving words, sacred sounds, and deep Celtic wisdom, Phyllida invites us into the caludron of inquiry into how we meet life with our presence and how we may accompany ourselves as we die to old versions of ourselves.

Thursday, 19th November

WEEK 8

Closing Community Cauldron

with Sionnáin & Lana Lanaia

A guided, held container within which to be heard, felt and moved by our love, grief, longing and belonging.

This call will not be recorded.

Meet Your Guides

Madge Bray

Born into a Scottish Highland family of village musicians, poets and storytellers, Madge Bray worked internationally in the field of childhood trauma, pioneering approaches to trauma resolution. Exploration of the sounds of dissonance in human suffering led her to Georgian polyphony and ultimately to cultural retrieval of music as a container for grief within her own Scots Tradition – and the unfolding of a deeper journey into lamentation and keening.

Mary McLaughlin

Dr. Mary McLaughlin is internationally known for her knowledge of the ancestral Keening practice in Ireland. An acclaimed singer who has released five albums (one on Sony Music) and has had over a million hits on Spotify, she combines her artistry with an academic approach to the Keen, grounding it in its history and context.

She has released four solo albums and two teaching books, sang the theme song for the PBS special about the Titanic, ‘Lost Liners’, contributed to 13 compilation albums on major labels and had two albums, ‘A Gaelic Christmas’ and “Sacred Days, Mythic Ways’ nominated for the international JPF Indie awards.

Her biggest recording successes were as the singer leading off the hugely popular Narada / EMI hit ‘Celtic Voices’ (1995) where she sang three songs including ‘Sealwoman’ which she composed over a traditional Scottish chant, and ‘Celtic Requiem’ (Windham Hill / Sony – 1998) on which she collaborated with William Coulter. The songs on ‘Celtic Voices’ had originally been recorded for the ‘Daughter of Lir’ album (1991/93/98), by the internationally acclaimed Jon Jacobs, famous for his work with Paul McCartney, the Divine Comedy and many others.

Mary is currently planning her next recording adventure which will probably be attached to the book she is now writing on the Keen and the World of Faerie.

Phyllida Anam-Áire

Phyllida Anam-Áire is an 83 year old Irish grandmother. She comes from an ancestral line of deep trauma. After boarding school in the 60s, Phyllida trained in Montessori, and then entered a convent. Her study in Theology and doctrine taught her a lot; not about God, but about dysfunctional patriarchal indoctrination.

Having finished her studies in humanistic psychology, Phyllida trained and worked for ten years with Elisabeth Kübler -Ross MD. After ten years working with Celtic Consciousness in Germany, she moved to Edinburgh to be with her son and grandchildren. Phyllida still shares her “Teachings from the Cauldron”, which is a combination of humanistic psychology and Spiritual wisdom.

Sionnáin

Sionnáin is a song carrier, ceremonialist & guide from the West of Ireland, she is walking a path devoted to tending the threads of lineage, landscape & language, by remembering & returning to learning her native tongue of Gaelige through her living relationship with song, ceremony & kinship.

Through this winding path of remembrance, rooted in ceremony here in Ireland, she has been guided & initiated into many of the ancient ways by the waters, land, elders and many other kin in Ireland, Scotland & Wales. And in the last 3 years has been deeply connected with the Caoineadh (Keening) tradition of Ireland, she has been listening deeply to how this ancient practice can be rewoven into our culture & practices as a resource & rite of passage for these times.

In 2016, whilst writing an anthropological thesis on the Hill of Uisneach (the umbilical cord of Ireland) she received a special song from the land; and since that moment she has been gifted many melodies & songs from some of Ireland’s sacred places that she has a deep bond with.

Sionnáin loves to create spaces where the waters of wisdom of your own body can flow forth with ease, inviting a space for healing, remembrance & resonance held in the Dreamtime, where your prayers & deepest Hearts longings can be felt, held and nourished through the songlines of these isles.

All of these ways of being & sharing are supported by the modalities she has studied in; Quantum Coherence Therapy, Yoga Nidra, Yin Yoga, & Voice & Sound Trainings, this together with the rich life journey, kinships & initiations give shape and depth to the ways that she shares spaces of care, community & connection.

Hanna Leigh

Hanna Leigh is a Singer-Songwriter, Voice Doula, Weaver, and Devotee of this precious, living Earth. She was raised in California (Chumash territory) though in recent years has spent extensive time residing on ancestral lands in the Celtic isles. Her people migrated to the U.S. several generations ago from England, Scotland, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands.

This organization, Weaving Remembrance, was birthed through her own passion to reclaim ancestral wisdom and grow in intimate reciprocity with this miraculous earth that sustains us.

Lana Lanaia

Lana is a daughter of the earth and stars. She is a musician, guides retreats, ritual and pilgrimages, and has been studying and working with earth wisdom traditions for over 25 years.

Lana lives in the Scottish Highlands, and her lineage is woven through many lands. She has a deep love for the holy Isles of Albion, her ancient places & wisdom. For many years she has been journeying to sacred sites, living in wild places, questing and communing with the land.

She is passionate about re-awakening the ancient, living wisdom within our hearts and lands;  weaving remembrance that we are all children of the Earth.

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One-Time Payment

$375
$ 295 ≈ £220
  • 7 × 2 Hour LIVE Workshops with our Guest Teachers
  • 2 LIVE Community Calls
  • Learn about & experience the ancestral tradition of keening
  • Connect in our private community space
  • Unlimited access to course content for 1 year
CHOOSE ONE-PAY

3 Monthly Payments

$125
$ 99 x 3 ≈ £74 x 3
  • 7 × 2 Hour LIVE Workshops with our Guest Teachers
  • 2 LIVE Community Calls
  • Learn about & experience the ancestral tradition of keening
  • Connect in our private community space
  • Unlimited access to course content for 1 year
CHOOSE 3-PAY
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5 Monthly Payments

$75
$ 59 x 5 ≈ £44 x 5
  • 7 × 2 Hour LIVE Workshops with our Guest Teachers
  • 2 LIVE Community Calls
  • Learn about & experience the ancestral tradition of keening
  • Connect in our private community space
  • Unlimited access to course content for 1 year
CHOOSE 5-PAY

Please note that prices listed in GBP (£) are approximate and will be adjusted based on the exchange rate at the time of purchase.

If our lowest payment plan is a significant financial barrier for you, please email us at support@weavingremembrance.org and briefly share about your need & what is inspiring you to join this course.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. Anyone who is called to this course is welcome to join!

This offering is happening online through Zoom, with teachers joining us from several different countries.

Yes, the calls will be recorded and uploaded to our course & community platform. We strongly reccomend you keep up each week with the class recordings if you can’t attend live.

No. The nature of the content delivery is that you purchase the entire course.

You will have access to the recordings for one year from the start date of the course.

No. Due to the delivery of course content, all sales are final.