Aoife Lowden (Ní Lodainn) is a dedicated cultural custodian, ceremonialist and heritage practitioner devoted to researching, remembering, and reviving the ancient land-based traditions, and intangible cultural wisdom of Éire and Alba.
Her work operates at the vital intersection of community development, eco-somatic education, and heritage restoration. By systematically re-weaving the connection between contemporary communities, ancestral lineages, and the natural world, her practice addresses modern cultural disconnection through the active preservation of living traditions.
Fáilte agus beannachtaí a chairde, míle buíochas as a bheith anseo liom.
Aoife was born in Tamhlacht, at the foothills of the Dublin Mountains—a landscape steeped in the ancient lore of Muintir Pharthaláin. Emerging from a background that experienced the rapid urban expansion and subsequent cultural disconnection common to modern working-class Dublin, she embarked on a lifelong quest to reclaim, document, and restore her own heritage. Her ancestry spans the rich Gaelic, Irish, Scottish, and Northern-English traditions of the upland communities. Her reclaimed surname, Lowden, derives from a Scottish root meaning "a fire on a beacon hill"—a fitting symbol for her devotion to keeping ancestral flames, oral histories, and traditional trades alive.
Passionate about cross-cultural equity and identity reclamation, Aoife supports diverse communities—including the global Irish and Scottish Diaspora—in repairing and strengthening their relationship to place, ancestry, and native folklore.
As an experienced event coordinator and project leader, she has spent nearly a decade co-creating high-impact community and land-based gatherings. Her extensive portfolio includes delivering educational courses, immersive heritage retreats, place-based tours (turas), and public seasonal celebrations that bridge ancient land-stewardship with modern community resilience.
Experience:
10 years of curating & delivering events, retreats & festivals across Ireland, the UK, Scotland and beyond.
Legal Board Director, Project & Land Manager (The Shieling Collective CIC 2024-2026)
Festival Event Coordinator CELT (2025-2026)
Countless ceremonies & healing arts trainings with esteemed practitioners in Ireland & the Americas.
3 years of rites of passage based ceremonial apprenticeship with Irish medicine woman Hilary Healy of ‘‘The Temple of Eiriú’’
6 years of teaching online courses to an international audience.
About Aoife
Aoife Howe (Ní Lodainn) is a dedicated Heritage Project Manager, Cultural Facilitator, Ceremonialist, and Traditional Artist on a lifelong journey of returning to ancestral lifeways, ecosystem stewardship, and Irish cultural heritage.
Her core mission is to inspire a collective return to dúchas—a profound Gaelic concept relating to place-based belonging, native lineage, and our intrinsic connection to the land. She believes that reclaiming our dúchas offers a transformative pathway to restore vital cultural lifeways, heal our relationship with the Earth, and cultivate modern ecological resilience.
Aoife’s journey began in Killinarden, a working-class urban housing estate situated on the foothills of the Dublin Mountains. Growing up on the geographical boundary between rapid post-industrial urban expansion and the ancient upland landscape, she became acutely aware of the systemic challenges facing marginalized communities and the urgent need for positive cultural representation. Like a flower growing through a crack in the concrete, this environment forged her deep resilience and ignited a lifelong devotion to grass-roots community development and cultural reclamation.
Driven by a fiercely independent spirit, Aoife sought out spaces of immersive learning and deep listening with the land from a young age. Her path of ancestral return led her to live in close communion with Ireland's sacred landscapes, including prolonged residencies in the historic environments of Tara and Uisneach. These formative years opened up profound pathways of unlearning, ecological observation, and heritage tracking.
She went on to formalize her artistic practice by completing a intensive two-year Diploma in Traditional Irish Music at Drumshanbo Vocational School.
Over the past eleven years, Aoife has traveled extensively to study under indigenous elders and lineage carriers from the rural communities of Ireland, Highlands of Scotland, Gaeltacht regions of Donegal, to the traditional healing communities of Guatemala and Peru. As an apprentice of traditional Irish ethnobotany and oral folklore, she has dedicated over a decade to lighting, tending, and managing ceremonial fire spaces and eco-cultural gatherings across Ireland. Her experience includes coordinating high-visibility cultural spaces at major national festivals—including the Flame of Uisneach and Electric Picnic—as well as serving as Legal Director, Project & Land Manager for a registered heritage centre in Scotland (The Shieling Collective CIC) and Event Coordinator for the respected ecological charity CELT (Centre for Environmental Living and Training).
Through her curated spaces, Aoife facilitates ancestral connection, community belonging, and the active restoration of traditional Gaelic cultural practices within a contemporary framework. Her work actively revives endangered intangible cultural heritage and eco-somatic traditions, including historical teine éigin (need-fire) customs, tigh n’allis (sweat house) purification rites, and relational ecology.
Believing that true cultural restoration is a collective endeavor, Aoife centers her work on cooperation and collaboration, weaving partnerships with community organizations, youth projects, and traditional artisans to anchor a vibrant, living heritage for future generations.
