Note from co-editor/Connia: We have received so many wonderful comments on Lady Olivia’s birthday. Below are photos and her account of the two-day celebration that she shares with all our members. Minette Quick (of the Circle of Brigid, who assists her at Festivals at the Foundation Center), also shares: ‘The Day’ was blessed with the most glorious weather. It was lovely to meet so many members of Olivia's family from the UK, who entertained us all with song and dance, music and drama, not to mention brilliantly improvising Olivia's own play. All this was followed by a sumptuous tea.... Next day the Temple was packed out with family and friends for the beautiful Ordination ceremony which she celebrated most movingly in her own, inimitable way!

image © Jane Marshall

I shared the occasion with my twenty-three year old great-niece, Trissala, who was also born on Friday the 13th April. Her father, Swadesh Poorun, was the bridegroom with Lawrence’s daughter Melian, in the televised Isis Wedding Rite, appearing on Irish Television on Easter Sunday 1976. It was shown between the Pope’s Easter Message and the Easter Blessing from the Protestant Primate of All Ireland. It was the first time “Isis” hit the headlines in the British and world press in an article. A photo showed the smiling pair in full robes, being married by my brother, former Anglican Rector, in Egyptian headdress and robes, under the dramatic heading “Goddess of Love Shocks a Rural ‘Eden’.” Date, 1st February 1976.

Now, 30 years on, we began our celebrations with an Isian procession round the grounds, down the long yew walk, headed by two Priestesses, Rev. Julie Felix, the folk singer and star, and Rev. Lydia Lyte, Drummer. What was splendid was that the procession consisted of thirty family members from England, ranging through 4 generations; FOI members of local Irish centres, and Clonegal Citizens – still, we hope, enjoying “a rural Eden.”

3 playlets were offered in the Castle Theatre, two by English cousins, Cressida and Caroline, and a play by myself “The Abduction Syndrome,” a light-hearted Space Children drama.

Next day we held an Ordination ceremony for Antoinette as Priestess of Quan Yin. It was lovely to see a bevy of great-great grandchildren sharing an Easter Egg on the Temple Floor! Our New Age is dawning.

image © Patrick Durdin-Robertson

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