The 2025 rally was a Silver Jubilee — twenty-five years since the first Brehon inauguration at Cahirmore in 2000. Sean O’Dowda Stephens was inaugurated Taoiseach on Coggins’ Hill, in sight of the sea, and a rowan sapling was planted to echo the rowan planted at the first rally of 1990.

The Silver Jubilee

The 2025 Gathering marked twenty-five years since Thomas J Dowds was inaugurated at Cahirmore in September 2000 — the first Ó Dubhda inauguration in 400 years. The programme was built accordingly, with extra space given to the sacred landscape from which the office derives its meaning: Carn Amhalghaidh, Carn Inghine Briain, the Enniscrone mound, and the ring of hilltop sites above Lackan Bay.

The Inauguration on Coggins’ Hill

On Thursday 9 October 2025, on Coggins’ Hill — the high ground above Enniscrone which the clan had walked earlier in the week with the archaeologist Dr Marion Dowd — Sean O’Dowda Stephens was inaugurated as the ninth modern Taoiseach of Tireragh. The White Wand was passed hand-to-hand through the assembly before the outgoing Taoiseach, Colum, raised it over Sean’s head. As he turned round three times, the clan called out Ó Dubhda! Ó Dubhda! Ó Dubhda! across Killala Bay.

A rowan sapling — sacred to the O’Dubhda, and echoing the rowan of Dubhros from which the family name is said to descend — was planted at the inauguration site. The 1990 rally had planted a rowan at Enniscrone Castle to mark the first hosting; the 2025 rowan marks the twenty-fifth year of the inaugurated Chieftainship, and the line between them is, intentionally, a living one.

Folklore & the Sacred Landscape

Dr Marion Dowd, now a regular of the gathering, led a walk across Coggins’ Hill, speaking about the ritual character of the landscape and the mounds that make the Ó Dubhda heartland a living archaeological text rather than a scatter of unrelated sites. Her address opened the folklore strand of the rally, which — drawing on Gertie MacHale’s 1971 Stories from O’Dowda’s Country — centred on the stories told in Tireragh long before any of these names were written down.

Voices & Visitors

The clan came from Canada, the United States, Scotland, England, Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa and, of course, Ireland. The banquet was again at Belleek Castle. The rally closed on Sunday with a parting glass at the Ocean Sands, and promises to return in 2028 — with plans already taking shape for that gathering.