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Chronicles of a Witch in Training
Herbalists and other autonomous women operating outside of the patriarchy were labeled "Witches" in the Middle Ages. It is thought that upwards of a million women were systematically killed, many of them were Herbalists. This ended the practice of Herbalism in Continental Europe. This is also when "Western" Medicine was born.
In Ireland, being an Herbalist, being educated, having a profession, owning land or property, speaking Irish, practicing your religion, and even playing the harp became illegal under British Colonization and the Penal Laws of 1695. That's when the Hereditary Herbalism practices of my ancestors ended.
Becoming an Herbalist is an act of resistance, a political statement, and a powerful feminist move. I descend from two Irish Hereditary Herbalism Families who practiced from 1100 to 1695. I have reclaimed my ancestral knowledge, my DNA. This is the story of how I went from Registered Nurse to Mom, Artist, and Herbalist, what I've learned and continue to learn along the way. In this blog, I share what I discover and remember — to help you heal yourself.
91. We visited Ireland this past March, traveled to The Bend In The Boyne and Lough Crew
Spiral Herbal Remedies owner Donna Troy Cleary traces her Hereditary Herbalism ancestry through Ireland's Neolithic passage tombs — Loughcrew Cairns and the Bend in the Boyne — where 5,000-year-old spiral petroglyphs inspired her logo and Druidic equinox ceremonies honored the harvest.
Donna Cleary
Sep 22, 20232 min read
90.Discover Plant-Based Healing: A Journey with Master Herbalist, Donna Troy Cleary in Brooklyn, NY.
In the heart of Brooklyn, Clinical Herbalist and former RN Donna Troy Cleary descends from Hereditary Herbalism Families in ancient Ireland and brings that ancestral knowledge to Spiral Herbal Remedies — where organic plant-based healing, personalized consultations, and community herbalism classes meet modern science."
Donna Cleary
Sep 13, 20233 min read
67. Witch?
Chronicles of a Witch in Training started as Donna Troy Cleary's account of discovering her Hereditary Irish Herbalism ancestry, the family medical school that ran in Munster from 1400–1700, and the Malleus Maleficarum that burned over a million women healers at the stake. Becoming an herbalist is a reclamation. And a radical feminist act.
Donna Cleary
Jan 21, 20223 min read
55. Irish Shamanism - Sli an Croi Sept 20,2020
What did Irish Shamans know about the gut that science is only now confirming? Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist and former RN Donna Troy Cleary traces her ancestral herbalism roots into Irish Shamanism and Druidism — and finds Quantum Physics, the microbiome, and the Gundestrup Cauldron waiting at the bottom of the rabbit hole.
Donna Cleary
Jan 21, 20223 min read
54. Herd Immunity and Hurdles. August 20, 2020
NYC flattened the curve. But this post is really about what happened before recorded history. Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary discovers her parents carry more Neanderthal DNA than 68–88% of the world — and wonders whether her ancestors were healing people when Ireland's stone circles were built 5,000 years ago."
Donna Cleary
Jan 21, 20224 min read
43. Witch? December 4, 2019
The women burned as witches weren't evil. They were herbalists — powerful, autonomous, at the center of their communities — eliminated by a law written to destroy them. Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary traces that history to her own Irish hereditary herbalism ancestry, and explains why opening Spiral Herbal Remedies is both a reclamation and a radical act.
Donna Cleary
Jan 21, 20223 min read
29, Chronicles of a Witch in Training Feb 8, 2018
In March 2017, Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist and MFA artist Donna Troy Cleary returned from Ireland with an ancestral revelation — hereditary herbalism on both sides of her family, stretching back centuries. This blog is that story: the serendipity, the history of how Western herbalism was nearly destroyed, and what it means to reclaim it."
Donna Cleary
Jan 21, 20221 min read
15. I left out a key part of my time in Cork... Kinsale. April 21, 2017
Churning ocean from cliff edge: "The churning Atlantic Ocean and jagged rocks seen from the unguarded cliff edge at Old Head Kinsale — photographed by Donna Troy Cleary during her 2017 ancestral pilgrimage to County Cork Ireland"
Cliffline to horizon: "The dramatic coastline of Old Head Kinsale receding to the horizon — photographed by Donna Troy Cleary during her 2017 ancestral pilgrimage to County Cork Ireland"
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20228 min read
14. Off to the Residency April 18, 2017
Driving on the wrong side of the road, in a stick shift, hugging a cliff with a half-mile drop to the Atlantic — Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist and MFA artist Donna Troy Cleary arrives at Cill Rialaig residency on the coldest, wettest day of March. She forages Usnea in a haunted forest, hits another mirror, and sleeps in a hat and wool socks. She wants to go back.
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 202210 min read
13. Castlenalact April 9
Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary walks the Castlenalact megalith alignment in County Cork, Ireland — standing stones stacked like dominoes in a field, sleet cutting sideways, crepuscular rays breaking through storm clouds over land emptied by the Great Famine. She forages nettles at their feet and wonders about the people who once had ancient magic in their backyard.
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20227 min read
12. On the way again... but first... April 7, 2017
Driving through County Cork, Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary slows at a roadside stone: 'Great Famine, 1845–1847. Site of Soup House.' Two years of starvation, one million dead, one million fled — and research now shows that trauma travels in the genes. This was her mission: to heal what was left
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20223 min read
11. On Traveling in Ireland March 31, 2017
Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary gets lost looking for a bank, climbs a rain-soaked Irish castle on the Kerry coast, and imagines herself a servant in a former life. The DANGER sign didn't stop her. The sheep smell nearly did
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20223 min read
10. Herbalism March 29, 2017
Herbalism has been passed from mother to daughter for tens of thousands of years — until colonialism, the witch trials, and institutional medicine nearly erased it. Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary traces her healing lineage: an herbal medical school in Munster Province from 1400–1700, and a middle name that means medicine in Gaelic.
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20222 min read
9. Cork VI March 28, 2017
A dead phone, a village with one store and one pub, a woman who made her a sandwich and charged her phone, a castle sitting in the middle of a river, a giant Virgin Mary in an intersection, and a tiny stone cottage that looked just like the one her great-great-grandfather lived in. Another day driving through County Cork.
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20224 min read
8. Cork V March 25, 2017
Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary converts obscure map references to satellite coordinates, climbs over barbed wire in wellies, sinks knee-deep into saturated Irish pasture, and arrives at the Bennalaght stone alignment in Northwestern Cork — 5,000-year-old stones her Neolithic ancestors erected, still standing in a waterlogged field.
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20225 min read
7. Cork IV March 24. 2017
Keep left. Look right. Screeeeeech. Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary narrates her way through three weeks of driving on the wrong side of the road in Ireland — narrow streets, cliff edges, tailgaters, and a street light that didn't survive. She has insurance.
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20222 min read
6. Cork III March 23, 2017
Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary follows a Great Dane into a Cork pub, chats up the man beside her, and discovers he is the owner. Ten minutes later he calls her over to meet his friend. Her cousin. The Twilight Zone music has not stopped since."
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20222 min read
5. Cork City II March 22, 2017
rooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary traces her Viking ancestry to Cork City, where Scandinavian settlers arrived in 914 AD and built houses along Barrack Street and Sullivan's Quay. Her grandmother always said the height and blue eyes came from the Vikings. The maps prove she was right.
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20222 min read
4. Cork City March 21, 2017
Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary spends her first days in Cork City searching for the church where her father walked into an ancestral home and came back out to find the car had never moved. She finds it — five doors from her Airbnb. The Vikings were there too."
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20225 min read
3. Preparing for Ireland MARCH 20, 2017
Brooklyn Clinical Herbalist Donna Troy Cleary researches Irish herbalism before her 2017 residency and discovers her own family — the Troy family — ran an herbal medical school from 1400 to 1700, closed when it became illegal for Irish Catholics to have a profession. Her middle name means medicine in Gaelic."
Donna Cleary
Jan 20, 20222 min read
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