Face To Face Support Meetings

Venue Location

West Cork

Venue: Fernhill House Hotel, Tawnies Lr. Clonakilty P85 X322

Times of meetings:  7.20 PM – 9.00PM

If you are a parent attending one of our meetings for the first time, please arrive at 7.15

 Dates of Meetings:

3rd Tuesday of each month

 Calendar of specific dates each month for the year

Month3rd Tuesday
JanuaryJanuary 21, 2025
FebruaryFebruary 18, 2025
MarchMarch 18, 2025
AprilApril 15, 2025
MayMay 20, 2025
JuneJune 17, 2025
JulyPAUSE FOR SUMMER
AugustPAUSE FOR SUMMER
SeptemberSeptember 16, 2025
OctoberOctober 21, 2025
NovemberNovember 18, 2025
December

What to Expect at an Anam Cara Face-to-Face Support Meeting

At Anam Cara, our peer-to-peer support groups are at the core of what we do. At these meetings, you can meet other bereaved parents. At these meetings, you have the opportunity to share, ask questions, connect, or just listen. Groups are led by a bereavement or mental health professional and a volunteer parent—someone who knows the experience of losing a child. The groups meet for around an hour and a half, though if it is your first time coming to a meeting, we recommend arriving fifteen to twenty minutes early, so you can meet the facilitators, and they can learn about you and your child. The evening will centre around an open discussion where parents can share experiences or simply listen in a compassionate and non-judgmental environment. Tea and light refreshments are provided. 

Most of our groups gather in quiet and confidential meeting rooms at hotels across the island. It is the policy of Anam Cara to keep confidential all personal information about parents, siblings, and families in our service. We provide a safe space for all bereaved parents, regardless of gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, age, disability, race, religion, or membership in the Traveller community, to share our loss and the complex emotions that surround grief.

Profesional Facilitator: Felicity Connolly 

Profesional Facilitator: Felicity Connolly

Felicity joined Anam Cara in 2023 and has the role of Professional Facilitator for the West Cork group.

Felicity has ten years’ experience of working in psychotherapy and counselling in private practice, in mental health charities and in the public health service. She qualified as a psychotherapist in 2019. She has worked as a therapist with people experiencing grief and bereavement, including bereavement through suicide.

Felicity sees the power of what happens in Anam Cara’s parent support groups when parents who understand each other, in a way perhaps no one else can, come together to share and listen, giving and receiving compassion and care. She sees her role as holding the space wherein parents can talk about the pain and devastation that comes with losing a child and also the ways in which parents have learned to survive this loss and reorganise their lives after loss.