Eco-Camping and Glamping in County Clare, Ireland
Furnished Tents, Cosy Cabins, Yoga & Meditation
Accommodation
From May through to September, we offer “Cosy Camping” or “Glamping” in our cool canvas Bell Tents and off-grid wooden cabins. Limited Pitches for tents and camper vans, enquire by email. Wake to the sounds of country life, Explore trails through our native woodland or take a 15 minute walk to the local shore and pier and bring your togs for a dip in case the tide is in! A true getaway.
Yoga
Why not try some Yoga or meditation while you are here? Weekly drop-in Yoga classes run in our bright cosy Yoga room with Trea. We host a Women and Girls Yoga weekend in May, Yoga and Vegan cookery retreat in June and the Loop Head Wellness Weekend in September. A Yoga class may be the perfect group activity for your getaway with friends.
Events
At our retreat space, we offer a selection of experiences that keep you firmly connected to the outdoor environment where you can enjoy all the benefits of nature bathing. Spending time in nature has been proven to enhance wellbeing; physically, mentally and emotionally for young and old. Some events are off-site activities such as Dolphin watching or Horse-riding.
Purecamping Events
Booking now open Imbolg Yoga and Meditation Retreat Morning
Booking now open Bealtaine Yoga and Meditation Retreat Day
Booking now open Yoga and Meditation Weekend Retreat
Testimonials
Purecamping on Instagram
This is an opportunity for some quiet time in the nature retreat space of Purecamping.🌿🦋🌿
🧘♀️The morning starts with a cup of herbal tea and a welcome to Purecamping . Some nice Yoga Asanas or postures. The postures are taught in a progressive way building stability, strength and mobility taking into account all aspects of your being; physical, energetic, emotional and mental.
Your Asana practice will be followed in the traditional way by pranayama (breathwork), meditation and Yoga Nidra leading you in to the peaceful quiet state of ‘Suaimhneas’ or contented bliss.
After a healthy and wholesome lunch, you’ll have time to experience the Loop Head Labyrinth, setting your intentions for the next few weeks and months 🙏
Cost: €45
The Labyrinth can be walked in many ways. Sometimes, it's quiet and reflective, sometimes it's a little more energetic.
🐶Jasper and Daisy are guarding Danu from Freya... I think....
🐕Lizzie is up on the bank investigating the wild smells.
🐶Freya is able to negotiate the Labyrinth walls like no other. Not recommended for humans, but those light footed creatures dance across and through the circuits.
The light is coming back 🌞
Coisceim an Coille 🐓 The Cocks step.
#dogs #bordercollies #Labyrinth #celticspirituality #imbolg
🎄12 days of Christmas
Day 12 of 12: Solid foundations required for rebuilding.
The mammalian and avian residents of the Purecamping woods rely on a diverse and healthy foundation of plants and insects.
If you want to help our threatened wildlife, you need to do little more than do less!
Keep some areas untended; let wild insects and plants thrive, and let Nature lead in healing us and itself.
Our biodiversity crisis, notwithstanding climate pressures, is a crisis that can be potentially resolved within decades (which is a very short space of time) 😁💪🏼.
Nature is resilient, let's work with it!
This particular footage is from the Purecamping woods courtesy of Canola Pictures. 🙂 Thanks Tony!
We hope you've enjoyed the few posts over the holidays. All the best to you all and to nature in 2023!
#noticenature #lovenature #wild #rewild
🎄12 days of Christmas
Day 11 of 12: The Irish Hare, a protected species... Irish style 🤦🏼
A compilation of hare clips (😉) from the Purecamping woods. To my mind a species of the open fields, it seems perfectly adapted to the woodland environment too. Well able to leap too, by day, or by night!
http://www.irishhare.org/
On a more sober note, this protected animal is counter-intuitively considered a game species and can be hunted or captured for coursing under license. Annually hares near us are rounded up from the wild, caged and 'trained' for more than a month, only to be released into a coursing arena to be quarry for two greyhounds, which facilitates betting on which dog might 'turn' the hare first.
A practice defended as being 'traditional', but surrounded by secrecy. Deliberately subjecting an animal to suffering for human entertainment is a tradition that I'm happy to let go... The irony being that the sport was introduced to Ireland by the British army in 1813! How's that for tradition? 🤦🏼
It's not like we don't have greyhound tracks to meet the needs of adherents.
http://www.banbloodsports.com/leaf-coursing.htm
Just because we've always done something a particular way, it doesn't mean that it's right!
No hares were harmed in the production of this piece 😉
🎄 12 days of Christmas
Day 10: Defending territory
A dunnock (aka hedge sparrow) and a robin giving a busy blackbird territorial headaches as it defends its patch. Health is all about access to adequate resources. The battle for survival is daily. Data show that our wild neighbours are losing the battle. What are we at?
Enjoy the hustle and bustle, right up to it shooing off a thrush at the end. Simple stuff! 😁
#wild #woods #noticenature #lovenature #cop15 #12daysofchristmas
🎄 12 days of Christmas
Day 9: A celebration of the pine marten
A pine marten minute to enjoy. We've had only a few clips of the pine marten in the last couple of years. It's always exciting to get a brief view into the mysterious world of the elusive pine marten.
At one time hunted to near extinction, they have been making a slow come back since they were protected in the late 1970's. One of our top predators, a force to be reckoned with for sure :-).
We had a rescued pine marten released in our woods in 2020 under the supervision of the NPWS, but that's another story. These clips don't feature the NPWS pine marten, which reassures us that our woodland provides adequate resources for the pine marten successfully forage. The daytime footage shows a pine marten investigating one of our hens that we posthumously put in the undergrowth with a trail cam documenting its return to nature. You'll note that the pine marten didn't commit. Successful wild animals are rightly suspicious 'free food' and will typically be slow to take offerings without, being desperate, or having checked out the offering thoroughly on a number occasions. This is footage from May 2021, so presumably a time of year when live 'natural' prey is readily available.
#wild #woods #noticenature #lovenature #cop15 #12daysofchristmas
🎄 12 Days of Christmas
Day 8: A day in the life of the undergrowth
This is from a couple of years ago, but I still remember reviewing the footage from the SD card.
Early in the day we see a little water rail. Later in the evening the secretive pine marten comes by, makes a deposit and exits stage left. An hour or so later, a fox happens by to read the news.
It was our first glimpse of the water rail, so there was great excitement! Fantastic stuff! We couldn't believe it when we then saw the pine marten and just not passing through, but showing some interesting behaviour too! The fox appearing and sussing out the scene of the pine marten crime was just the icing on the cake. That minute of footage from that one day alone easily justified all the effort associated with trying to make the Purecamping space one that is diverse and wild 🙂
#wild #woods #noticenature #lovenature #cop15 #12daysofchristmas
🎄 12 days of Christmas
Day 7: Badger wrestlers
We do see badgers occasionally passing by our trail cameras. Typically they are on their way from A to B, without much to report. Occasionally, we get to see them dig for worms as they go, or even sprint off when spooked. This little exchange was too nice not to share.
https://www.vincentwildlife.ie/species/badger
#wild #woods #noticenature #lovenature #cop15 #12daysofchristmas
🎄 12 days of Christmas
Day 6: Busy bird
It's mid-April, just before we opened up fully, and we put a camera on a dead leveret that we had found. We were hoping to attract a fox, or pine marten, to see what might happen. What we didn't expect was a great tit harvesting the baby hare's fur. Very little seems to go to waste in nature 🙂. The great tit came back again and again over a number of days, stripping away most of the fur. We can only imagine how cosy the nest was in the end! While we are used to seeing great tits at our winter feeding stations, it was nice to see breeding season behaviour 🙂. Anyway, enjoy the snippet.
https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/great-tit/
#noticenature #lovenature #cop15 #wild #woods #12daysofchristmas
🎄 12 days of Christmas
Day 5: The Irish Stoat
We've only twice captured a stoat on our trail cameras. The first time, we saw it in full chase of a rat. It was all over fairly quickly. This time, the stoat was on its own looking over a bank, over which it disappeared. Exactly 2 minutes later, we see it with its prey. After a brief wrestle, it heads off with its victim in its jaws.
Another vignette of life in the wild, giving an insight into the daily drama being played out in the Purecamping woods.
https://www.vincentwildlife.ie/species/irish-stoat
#noticenature #lovenature #wild #woods #stoat #cop15 #12daysofchristmas
🎄12 days of Christmas
Day 4: An elusive Water Rail
You can't imagine the thrill that we got when we saw that we'd caught a water rail on one of our trail cameras. This secretive amber-listed bird is heard more often than seen. We've been lucky enough to get a few videos of the bird over that last couple of years. Apparently, a relative of the corn crake and similarly challenged as we drain wetlands. Spare a thought for the unseen this Christmas.
https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/water-rail
#lovenature #noticenature #COP15 #wild #NPWS #birds #12daysofchristmas
🎄 Day 3: A busy redwing
Loads of redwing thrushes in the woods this year. A common, but welcome winter visitor from the North. Birdwatch Ireland has them favouring open fields, but our woods seem to be just as attractive. Flocks of 20 and 30 specimens seen settling down in the early evenings. Keep an eye out for the distinctive red underwing flash along the flank. Not quite a Christmas robin, not far off either 🙂
https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/redwing/
🎄 Day 2: A wonderful woodcock
The fantastically camouflaged woodcock in the Purecamping woods. Talk about a beautiful bird! Now with a Red conservation status in Ireland due to a decline in the breeding population, yet you can shoot woodcock in Ireland from November 1st to January 31st. Makes no sense to us. All our wildlife is pressured, take a little time over the Christmas to consider their lot and enjoy this insight into the day of one particular woodcock in one particular corner of our woods... Ho, Ho, Ho!!! 🎅
https://birdwatchireland.ie/birds/woodcock/
#noticenature #lovenature #wildlife #birds #woodland #NPWS #cop15 #12daysofchristmas
12 days of Christmas:
🦊 Day 1: A Solstice fox
As we enjoy our Christmas fare, spare a thought for all our wildlife. Daytime sightings of the Fantastic Mr. Fox are rare, but Winter hardship can force daylight foraging. Just think about their challenge of waking every day (or night) without knowing where the next meal might come from... This is true for all our wild animals, their options seem to be more constrained every day. Lots of pressure on their habitats and maybe little room in our own consumer lives to empathise. Hopefully, recent developments with the Biodiversity Citizens' Assembly and the Biodiversity COP 15 will bear fruit. Enjoy this little glimpse into the life of one of our top predators 💪🏼 Magnificent specimen 💪🏼 Winter Woodland Wildlife Wishes... Ho, Ho, Ho 🎅
#noticenature #lovenature #cop15 #12daysofchristmas
🌿From the top field, you can see the mouth of the Shannon/Sionna emptying into the Atlantic.
🌿From the top field you can see Purecamping sloping away down towards the water.
🌿From the top field you can see the trees we planted 16 years ago.
🌿From the top field you can see our home and the place where many a visitor has stayed and chilled and got solace or felt Suaimhneas, or got muddy and 'lost' and maybe didn't want to be found because the trees and the wildness made them feel at home 🌿🦋🌿
Freya and Daisy recovered.
Happy days.
#wild #woods #noticenature #love #animals
A wander in the woods brought me to the new emerging birch woodland in the Labyrinth field.
No glasses so didn't have a clue what to press on the screen. But spontaneity is good as is imperfection 🤣🤣
#noticenature #wild #woods #love #compassion
Portraits in the woods 🌿
A Scott's Pine leaning at an angle with roots exposed. A combination of sodden spongy ground through the winters and high winds, and still they survive.
#noticenature
#wild #woods
Winter garden 🥬
#growyourownfood
Keeping it simple 🌿
#wild #woods #beauty #noticenature