The Great Famine in Ireland – also known as an Gorta Mór, or the Great Hunger – claimed the lives of a million people, or one in eight of the population. More than a million more only managed to escape starvation by emigrating, many of them children who undertook the gruelling voyage to the United States or Canada, never to see their parents again.

In 2024, Simon Courtney, Bill McCart and Kathy Scott led a year-long Pocket Project International Lab to support people of Irish descent – whether living in Ireland or the diaspora – to explore the legacy of the 1845-1852 famine, and how it echoes into Irish lives in the present.   

In this powerful episode, Simon recounts the deep sense of calling that led him to this intimate work, and how the Lab allowed participants to begin to unearth and integrate what their Irish ancestors were unable to heal in their own time.   

The Lab explored the impact of British colonial policies that led to enormous avoidable suffering and death during the famine years. In a moving exchange, Simon and Matthew (a British citizen), recognise their shared hope that more people from their respective nations will find opportunities to explore what so often remains unspoken between them – and establish deeper connections. 

This episode will be hugely valuable for anyone with an interest in collective and ancestral healing, and all those inspired by Simon’s mission to create more spaces for Irish people to embrace new futures by integrating the most painful chapters of their shared past.  

(You can read more about the Pocket Project Lab on the Great Famine and other Pocket Project International Labs here.).

About Simon Courtney

Simon is a trauma-informed psychotherapist and coach with a deep reverence for the healing potential of group work and relational facilitation. His approach integrates individual, ancestral, and collective dimensions of healing, grounded in a somatic and systemic understanding of trauma. He is especially drawn to the power of shared space, where witnessing, resonance, and presence can restore what was fragmented and reawaken the soul’s inherent capacity for belonging.

PROMOTIONAL LINK: The Global Social Witnessing Facilitator Training offers a profound journey into embodied witnessing – cultivating our ability to attend to world events with inner spaciousness and relational depth. This training supports the emergence of a culture of ethical presence, where attention becomes a healing force and leadership is rooted in coherence. https://pocketproject.org/global-social-witnessing-training-phase-2/

Further Resources:

Report on the Pocket Project Lab on the Great Famine

Sacred Storybook: A Tapestry of Healing and Renewal