Little Lanterns: A Winter Solstice Gathering with Kerri ní Dochartaigh
When & Where
19 Dec 2025, 19:00 – 21 Dec 2025, 12:00
Yarn, 24-26 Ann St, Ballycastle BT54 6AD, UK
About
Join writer Kerri ní Dochartaigh at Yarn this December for a winter solstice gathering: a weekend of words, ritual and creative practice. We’ll be coming together to mark the turning of the year and honour the slow, still beauty of winter.
‘A two-day winter workshop for those who still love the world. We will hold space, hedgerow-like, for all there is still to hold close. The world, still so beautiful, is so worthy of our love. Let’s hold her gently as winter light begins to fall.’
The gathering takes place across the weekend, Friday 19th - Sunday 20th December:
Friday Evening
We begin together with a shared welcome dinner and drinks. Afterwards, we’ll gather in circle, inviting each guest to bring a favourite winter poem or short excerpt to share as an introduction. We’ll make paper window stars while Kerri shares reflections on light, darkness and the quiet glimmers that sustain us through winter. We’ll close the evening in circle, drawing a seed card for the season ahead and journaling around a prompt.
Saturday
We’ll begin the morning with a sea swim and cacao. The day’s central workshop — Winter Light on Moss, Falling — is a two-hour creative session exploring poetry, memories and creative journaling.
Through writing prompts, readings and reflection, we’ll explore how to nurture a creative practice that carries us through winter and beyond. The afternoon will include moments of poetry and a solstice session marking this tender midpoint of the year.
Breakfast and lunch are included. Dinner on Saturday isn’t included.
Sunday Morning
A slow morning with breakfast, coffee and tea. We’ll swim again and share cacao, followed by a listening and gathering exercise as a final reflection before we part. Before we leave, we’ll each roll a beeswax candle to take home — a small light to carry into the darker months — and close around midday with a reading from Kerri.
What’s Included
Guided workshops and creative sessions across 1x evening, 1x full day and 1x morning
Welcome dinner and drinks on Friday, breakfast and lunch on Saturday, and breakfast on Sunday
Morning cacaos and optional sea swims
All materials for creative and journaling activities
For those booking accommodation: a 2-night stay included
Tickets
£100: One day attendance on Saturday
£175: Non-residential attendance (includes all sessions and meals from Friday dinner to Sunday morning)
Our accommodation is fully booked for this event. If you require accommodation locally, get in touch: info@yarnballycastle.com
Who is Kerri ní Dochartaigh?
Kerri ní Dochartaigh is a mother, writer, holder and grower. She is moved by the way we tend and attend: to ourselves; to one another; to the living world. She has written for The Guardian, BBC, RTE, The Irish Times and others. She mentors and teaches worldwide.
Her work currently explores ideas of one-anotherness, interconnectedness and ecologies of care.
Her first book, Thin Places, was published by Canongate in Spring 2021, for which she was awarded the Butler Literary Award 2022, and highly commended for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2021. Cacophony of Bone was published by Canongate in May 2023 and was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2023. Kerri lives in the west of Ireland with her family.
Tickets
General Admission
From £100.00 to £175.00
Sale ended£100.00
+£2.50 ticket service fee
£175.00
+£4.38 ticket service fee