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Please note:  As part of our updating of the Anam Cara web site, we have added two sections:  Picture Gallery and Forums..  In the Picture Gallery, you will find 60 photos of the retreat and its environs; feel free to download them and/or send them on to your friends.  Forums is meant to be a place for you – former writers- and artists-in residence and those new to the retreat alike – to share experience, techniques, creative work, ideas, and suggestions.  We hope you’ll enjoy both as well as the other updates soon to be included.

High on a heather-covered hillside awaits Anam Cara,* a tranquil spot set apart to nurture and to provide sanctuary for those who create. Whether you come to work on a writing or artistic project of your own or as part of a workshop or special interest group, you will find support, creature comforts, and peace – all you need to produce your best work.

 
Anam Cara, an Irish retreat for writers and artists overlooking Coulagh Bay and
the mountains and farmlands of the sub-tropical Beara Peninsula in West Cork
 
To help fulfill Anam Cara's purpose and to let the breezes off Coulagh Bay clear your creative path, we recommend a stay of at least a week. Your hostess, Sue Booth-Forbes, an experienced writer and editor, creates an ambience and a daily schedule that will help you concentrate your energies on your artistic endeavor:
 

Photo by Linda Hoffman Kimball

  • Morning meals taken with other residents

  • Quiet working hours from 9:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. with mid-day meals shared with others or on your own

  • Evening meals taken with other residents

  • Smoke-free environment
 
In the evening, you may want to share your work in conversation with others in front of a turf fire or watch the sun set in the magical west-of-Ireland sky.
 
Photo by Russell Tomlin
Photo by Mary L. Bradford
Since 1998, artists and writers have been having that conversation — inspiring and supporting each other as they have worked through their own creative processes. To extend the conversation, this web site includes comments, excerpts and samples of their work, and web links to the creative community of people who have been in residence. May they and their work inspire and support yours.

 

*The name Anam Cara means "soul friend" in Irish; it was chosen, in part, to pay tribute to the work and writing of John O'Donohue.