Finding The Place That Has Never Been Wounded
A Four Day Residential Retreat
presented by Dr Tony Bates
with Niall Breslin joining for the final day
25th - 29th November 2026
This November, Mulranny Arts is delighted to welcome renowned clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and author Dr Tony Bates for a special residential retreat exploring self-compassion, vulnerability and authentic living.
Finding the Place That Has Never Been Wounded will bring a small group of participants together for reflection, conversation, creativity and shared experience in the unique landscape of Clew Bay.
The retreat explores how, even in the face of life’s challenges, we can develop a greater capacity to meet life with openness, trust and compassion. Through group work, self-reflection, music and art, participants will be invited to explore identity, vulnerability, self-compassion and their place in the world.
The programme forms part of Mulranny Arts’ growing series of immersive residential experiences, bringing together creativity, culture, learning and personal exploration in a distinctive and supportive setting.
Irish musician, author and mental health advocate Niall Breslin (Bressie) will join Dr Bates for the final day, culminating in ‘The Place That Has Never Been Wounded’, a session featuring live music, reflection, poetry and conversation.
Psychology and spirituality speak of a capacity within each of us to meet life’s challenges with openness and trust. Niall Breslin has described this as the place that has never been wounded. He has captured, through words and music, his experience of finding that place in himself. His journey invites each of us to ask, “What is the place within me that could help me experience my life more deeply? How can I be more open to the truth of who I am and embody that truth in how I live? What can I uniquely offer this very beautiful-but-broken world of ours?” Through group work, self-reflective exercises, music and art, this four-day residential retreat invites participants to meet life with courage and compassion.
Mulranny Arts will welcome renowned clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and author Dr Tony Bates to Co. Mayo this November for a special residential retreat exploring self-compassion, vulnerability and what it means to live more fully and authentically.
Presenter
Dr Tony Bates is a Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at University College Dublin. He served as Head of the Department of Psychology at St James’s Hospital, Dublin, for 30 years. After training in psychotherapy at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Oxford, he established the MSc in Cognitive Psychotherapy at TCD. In 2006, he left St James’s to establish Jigsaw (The National Centre for Youth Mental Health) to support young people’s mental health needs. He is patron of the Mindfulness Teachers Association of Ireland (MTAI) and author of ‘Coming through Depression: A mindful path to recovery’, and ‘Breaking the Heart Open: The shaping of a psychologist’.
May you discover that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there’s still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there’s a confidence and tranquility in you.”
John O’Donohue
‘Finding The Place That Has Never Been Wounded’
The Schedule
This retreat will take place on the Mulranny Arts campus
DAY 1 | WEDNESDAY 25TH NOVEMBERArrival & Opening
4.00–5.30pm: Arrival & Registration
Mulranny Arts Centre (MAC)
6.00pm: Welcome Meal
An opportunity to settle in and share a meal together
7.30–9.00pm: Full Group Convenes
A few words of welcome to set the scene and explain the values and aims underpinning this retreat
Introductions
Our personal hopes, intentions and needs
DAY 2 | THURSDAY 26TH NOVEMBER
Act 1
8.30am: Breakfast
9.30–10.00am: Moving & Breathing Together
10.00–12.30pm: Moving Towards, Not Away From, Our Inner Experience
Talk by Tony Bates with poetry, Bressie’s music and video
Group discussion
1.00pm: Lunch
3.00–5.30pm: Deepening Our Experience of Being Alive
Individual and small-group exercises to reconnect with ourselves, let go of judgement, and open to the beauty and mystery of being alive with grace and gratitude
Group Feedback
6.00pm: Dinner
7.30–8.30pm: Group Reflection & Sharing
DAY 3 | FRIDAY 27TH NOVEMBERAct 2
8.30am: Breakfast
9.30-10am: Moving & Breathing Together
10.00–12.30pm: The Wound in the Heart That Has Never Been Touched
Talk by Tony Bates with poetry, Bressie’s music and video
Group Discussion
1.00pm: Lunch
3.00–5.30pm: Self-Compassion & The Courage to Be Vulnerable
Individual and small group exercises to deepen self-compassion and experience the larger context of our lives in terms of our history and how we now belong in the world
Group Feedback
6.00pm: Silent Dinner
By candlelight in the Oratory
7.30–9.00pm: Personal Exercise
To be completed alone
DAY 4 | SATURDAY 28TH NOVEMBER
Act 3
8.30am: Breakfast
9.30–10.00am: Moving & Breathing Together
10.00–12.30pm: Arriving at our own Door
Talk by Tony Bates with poetry, Bressie’s music and video
Group discussion
1.00pm: Lunch
3.00–5.30pm: Transforming our experience of self
Individual and small-group exercises to see our lives in a larger context, appreciate our gifts and hold our brokenness in compassionate awareness.
Group Feedback
6.00pm: Dinner
7.00-9.00pm: Small Group Exercise
Creative Art
Act 4
DAY 5 | SUNDAY 29TH NOVEMBER8.30am: Breakfast
9.30-10am: Moving & Breathing Together
10.00–11.30am: Tony Bates with Niall Breslin
Presentations of Art Visualisations
11.30-12.00pm: Break
12.00-2.00pm: The Place That Has Never Been Wounded
Niall Breslin with live music
Group Reflection and Feedback
2.00pm: Lunch
3.00pm: Check out and Farewell