Evening of mediumship and music at Mayo hotel

A NATIVE of Castlebar will be returning home to host a mediumship event at The Ellison Hotel on Sunday, August 7, at 7.30 p.m..

Dawn Darling, who was born on McHale Road but now resides in Donegal, will host the event alongside her colleague Bill Hughes, who has connections in Swinford, who Dawn describes as 'an amazing person' and is 'brilliant' in mediumship.

A medium is, in Dawn's own words, 'a person that interlinks between this world and the next and passes on messages that would provide evidence and conversation from those that have gone into the spirit world for the people that are with us.'

In other words, it is someone who receives messages from people who have died.

Speaking to The Connaught Telegraph, Dawn said: "Whether it'd be a one to one situation or like the evening in the Ellison which is a group situation, it can be very comforting because it helps people process grief which is so important.

"End of life is what we do, it's where we go at the end and it's my job to bring comfort to people and a sense of hope and sometimes answering questions that they may have. Say if a person passed and didn't get the chance to say goodbye or there was unusual circumstances around their passing, we can help, I suppose, bring validation, completion and closure."

Reflecting on her first experience as a medium, Dawn said: "I've always been a medium since I was a small child. My first major life experience would have been when my son Ben passed away in October 2003.

"After that, I moved away from Castlebar. I lived there for many, many years and moved to Donegal to be near my Mum, who had moved there previously. I was searching for meaning, which a lot of people do when they're bereaved.

"In early 2004, I trained with a psychotherapy process in Dublin. I had to come back and take case studies to get a certificate for that. It involved people coming in for weight loss, depression, whatever was going on with them at the time.

"I was very aware that my son in the spirit world was around. It's a hard thing to describe but I often got a feeling of clairsentience when he was close.

"I was also visually seeing them. I was seeing my grandmother, who was deceased, coming to me. I would seeing her holding my baby.

"I always thought it was just me and I never put much to it until when I was in this session for weight loss with a lady. We were the only two people physically in the house. A man came in from the door behind her and stood to the right of her. She asked what I was looking at and I said: 'Can you not see the man stood beside you?' She turned her head and she couldn't see anybody.

“I know it sounds far-fetched but what happened next was I went on to describe him. He told me his name and very personal details about him and she said 'Dawn, that's my uncle Jimmy.'

"When he passed, her weight increased. I learned at that point in time through everything he shared and the comfort and sense of relief it gave her that whatever was going on with her at a personal level, he came in to help acknowledge the passing and what it did to her at the time emotionally as they had a close relationship.

"That was the start of it and people just kept coming. She told people this is what I do and they kept coming. She said 'You do realise you're a medium?'. My only awareness of mediums at the time was Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Swayze in the movie Ghost.

"The work is genuine, it's true, supporting and uplifting and it connects. I believe in what I do and most good mediums will have very good life skills behind them. I've gone on to do things like bereavement counselling and hypnotherapy to ensure I'm the complete package to serve the person I'm working with."

MUSIC

Music has been a huge inspiration for Dawn also, and she will be incorporating it with her event. One song, in particular, Wonderchild, by Jimmy McCarthy (originally sung by Mary Black), is very close to her heart, having first heard it when she was expecting her first son Dale.

After a long delay, she recorded her own version of it in 2019 and the wonderful cover can be heard on her YouTube page. A tour was scheduled, but it was scrapped due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"I first heard the song in 1995. It really resonated with me as a mother for the first time. I went to St. Angela's NS and a teacher of mine was a big fan of WB Yeats.

"When my third son passed away in 2003, I played Wonderchild at his funeral and also Angel by Sarah MacLachlan.

"I feel the song has healing with it and happiness. It took a long time for me to sing it without crying because there was so much emotion attached. It doesn't matter what age a child passes away, it's still your child."

You can listen to Dawn's cover for Wonderchild at https://youtu.be/KmIRHC-Erd4 and it is also available on iTunes.

*Tickets for the event are €22 and can be bought here.