Irish Girl in Brooklyn are excited to announce upcoming event at Glin Castle:  Friday 2nd October 2020 to Sunday 4th October 2020.  A Floral Celebration of Samhain at Glin Castle.  Hosted by Emily Thompson, Shane Connolly and Dominic West and Catherine FitzGerald

A Floral Celebration of Samhain at Glin Castle
Hosted by
Emily Thompson, Shane Connolly,
and
Dominic West and Catherine FitzGerald
Friday October 2nd to Sunday October 4th
In support of Glin Castle and Irish Women in Gardening
Brought to you by Irish Girl in Brooklyn

 

 

Dominic West and Catherine FitzGerald invite you to her ancestral home, Glin Castle, to join renowned floral designers Emily Thompson and her dear friend, Shane Connolly, in a celebration of Samhain / All Hallow's Eve as a master class in floral artistry.

Guests will enjoy the exquisite bedrooms, walled garden and grounds of Glin Castle. Emily and Shane will personally give masterclass sessions on modern floral installations and design, focusing on the latest trends in ecological floral concepts using flowers and foliage from the gardens and woods.

Your host Catherine FitzGerald is the daughter of the 29th Knight of Glin ( the Black Knight, the Knight of the Valley.) Her family have lived on Glin land since the 12th century. Catherine is a landscape gardener and trained horticulturalist inspired by the women who have loved and expanded the gardens of Glin over the centuries.



Glin Castle and Grounds

 

Glin Castle sits on 400 acres with breathtaking views of the Shannon estuary. The gardens are magical with ancient oaks, a tumbling stream, a productive walled garden, and a collection of rare trees and shrubs. Charming Gothic follies ornament the demesne. There are endless secret spots to be explored along with the wealth of fascinating original architectural and decorative features within the house. These include a hidden room, a rare flying staircase used by the Cracked Knight to ride his horse up to bed, and stories of visiting rock and roll royalty, poets, writers and artists past and present. Inhabited by the FitzGerald family for eight hundred years, Glin castle has been graced by celebrities including Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful, and Seamus Heaney, as well as an ancestor who was the only female member of the infamous Limerick Hellfire Club.

Traditionally the FitzGerald matriarchs of Glin have developed and cared for the great gardens. In keeping with this ideal, 10% of any after tax profits from modern events are donated to charities centered around women and gardening.

Program of Activities

Attendees will stay in beautifully appointed en suite bedrooms at Glin, arriving on Friday and leaving on Sunday. Guests will enjoy workshops including floral installations, centerpieces, flower crowns, and floral fantasies all supplied from the extensive grounds and walled gardens of Glin Castle.

Events will include gourmet food and wine and a masked dinner on Saturday night, a visit to the local village pub with live traditional music, a picnic tour of the grounds and gardens, a botanical cocktail session in the Greenhouse, and a lantern walk to a Samhain bonfire ( weather permitting ) with ghost stories of banshees and changelings told by a local Shanachi, a traditional Irish storyteller.


This weekend, in the tradition of Glin Castle, is a celebration of life, beauty and gardening.

The pricing for the event:
3250 euros per person sharing in twin room.
4000 euros single occupancy (private room)
3250 euros per person sharing with King bed.

click here to purchase - purchase

This will include 3 days/2nights of food, flowers, and All Hallows entertainment.

Additional days may be added before or after the event. Professional colleagues or team members could be accommodated outside of the main house, or in local B & Bs if neccessary. Please enquire.

Places are limited so contact us at [email protected]



Emily Thompson

Emily Thompson is one of the premier floral designers in the world. Her work was featured at the Obama White House. She has collaborated with fashion icons such as Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Bottega Veneta, Giorgio Armani, and has been published in Vogue, Architectural Digest, and the New York Times as well as many others. Her installations have appeared in the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney and the Frick in New York, as well as The Modern.
Emily is fascinated with the decorative arts and their history while she continues to collaborate with the rough hand of nature. Sustainability is at the core of her beliefs. Her work is a balance between the uncultivated organic world with the delicacy of classical ornamental design. Her arrangements burst with unconventional materials like wild smilax yet always maintain sculptural grace. Most importantly, they are built in harmony with the space where they are displayed as if they grew there.

Shane Connolly

Irish born Shane Connolly set up Shane Connolly & Co. in 1989 and holds a Royal Warrant of Appointment both to HM The Queen and to HRH The Prince of Wales. He is perhaps best known for his floral designs for the wedding of Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in 2011. Sustainability and seasonality informed those designs and continue to be the bedrock of all he does today. Shane is based in London but works, teaches master-classes and judges floral design world-wide. He is the author of five books on floristry and design, including ‘Table Flowers’ ‘Wedding Flowers’ and ‘The Language of Flowers’. A judge of British Flower Week, he gardens in Worcestershire and has a particular passion for using growing things and freshly-picked native plants and weeds in his designs.