Iyengar teacher distribution in Ireland

Margaret married in 1968 and moved to Ballymena in Northern Ireland where she taught a yoga class. In 1969, Margaret and her husband moved to the nearby village of Broughshane and renovated an old National School, establishing a Montessori School and a Yoga School.

Margaret was the first to teach Iyengar yoga classes in Ireland, having been given permission by Guruji to teach. It wasn’t until 1993 that Mira Mehta suggested that Margaret present for an assessment at Maida Vale in London to obtain an introductory teaching certificate, which she did.

Development over the Years

The Yoga Fellowship of Northern Ireland (YFNI) was set up in Belfast in 1977 to promote the benefits of yoga for all and Margaret joined the committee. The Irish Yoga Association (IYA) was founded in Dublin in 1978 and began training Hatha yoga teachers to make yoga accessible to as many people as possible. IYA invited many Iyengar yoga teachers to Dublin in the late 1970s and early 1980s – Danielle Arin, Mira Mehta, Shyam Mehta, Dona Holleman, Angela Farmer, Victor Van Kooten, Sophy Hoare, Jenny Beeken and John Friend – all of whom had studied with BKS Iyengar for many years.

When Marguerite Lyster and Aisling Guirke completed the two-year IYA teacher training course in 1986, Danielle Arin encouraged them to set up an Iyengar yoga introductory teacher training course in Ireland. The first course was introduced in 1993 under Mira Mehta’s administration through the Iyengar Yoga Institute at Maida Vale.

Aisling had liaised with Mira and organised a venue in Ranelagh, Dublin, with Cork-born teacher trainer Elizabeth Connolly and Scotsman Gerry Chambers,  who was shadowing Elizabeth. 23 trainees enrolled for the course and were granted a dispensation by the BKS Iyengar Yoga Teachers’ Association (BKSIYTA) to join the training. With no Iyengar teachers in Ireland, they could otherwise not fulfil the stipulation of attending classes for two years with an Iyengar teacher. Four of the trainees were already IYA-trained Hatha yoga teachers.

Christine Fiske, from Curracloe in Wexford attended classes with Helen Gillan in 1992, when Helen moved to Wexford from the UK after obtaining her introductory Iyengar teaching certificate at Maida Vale. Helen was the first Iyengar teacher in the south of Ireland.

The first Iyengar teacher training course consisted of three full weeks of training, interspersed with several weekends to make up the required hours. Helen Gillan was invited to deliver additional workshops with the trainees to develop their practice. At the end of the two years in 1995, 17 qualified as introductory teachers in Ireland – four from the North and 13 from the South. Five of them are still teaching Iyengar yoga today.

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​​​From those first tentative steps, close relationships developed between the Iyengar community in the UK and their Irish counterparts and those relationships continue to this day. We are deeply grateful for the support, encouragement, expert tuition, experience and inspiration from the many UK teachers who visited Ireland to teach or to assess.

Further Introductory Teacher Training Courses

After that first teacher training course, Elizabeth Connolly trained 28 more introductory teachers before Padmavasini (Joan Graham), Rita Keegan and Aisling Guirke, who had been shadowing her, took over and ran another fifteen teacher training courses. Padmavasini moved to the UK in 2003.

Marion Kilburn from Manchester ran an Introductory Teacher Training Course in Dublin from 2002-2004 and Pen Reed from Stockport began teacher training at Helen’s centre in Sligo in 2002, with Helen Gillan shadowing her. Grainne Gilleece set up another training course in Dublin from 2004-2006. 

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n 2005, Margaret Gunn-King organised the first Iyengar introductory teacher training course in Northern Ireland at her Yoga School in Broughshane, with the help of Margaret Austin, who sent Diane Coats and Dave Browne from Sunderland as teacher trainers. They ran a second course in Broughshane in 2007, resulting in 11 newly qualified introductory teachers.

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Gordon Austin from Sunderland introduced a teacher training course at the Iyengar Yoga Centre in Phibsborough in Dublin in 2008 before Eileen Cameron and Margaret Cashman took over and ran six further courses there.

Teacher training with Pen Reed at Sligo Yoga Centre

Iyengar Teachers in Ireland

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Many introductory teachers continued their Iyengar yoga journey and went on to gain Intermediate Junior Level 1, 2 and 3 certificates, as well as Intermediate Senior Level 1, 2 and 3 certificates. 

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These teachers were helped along the way by senior teachers from the UK, including Elizabeth Connolly, Penny Chaplin, Jeanne Maslen, Pen Reed and Richard Ward, as well as Irish senior teachers Eileen Cameron and Aisling Guirke.

 Class at Sligo Yoga Centre in 2009

There are 88 qualified Iyengar teachers teaching in Ireland – 19 Level 3, 30 Level 2 and 39 Level 1 teachers, who are teacher members of the Iyengar Yoga Ireland member group of IY(UK). There are a further 25 qualified teachers not teaching at present, who are non-teacher members, as well as 45 nonteacher student members. Among the Irish teachers, are three assessors and eight mentors. Several are involved in the work of IY(UK), serving on various committees as officers, committee members and member group representatives.