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Savage Craic is a living partnership between llewyn máire (they/sí), Dr. Lisa Newman (she/they), local and international herbalists, land workers artists, makers, and an eclectic family of plantcestors, microbial mates, fungikin, and all our more-than-human comrades — fermenting lifeways in the Irish Free State since 2015.

“it is not about becoming, it is about becoming-with.”

Donna Haraway

We are a Queer-led venture, rooted in land solidarity, that promotes health autonomy through skill sharing and collective care. Our offerings include workshops, events, 1:1 herbal queercare, radical remedies and seasonal ferments.

Funds raised from the sale of ferments, remedies, and events like Mushrooms & Roses goes towards creating more opportunities for community care.

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 llewyn "llE" máire (they/ sí)
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is a chef, artist, community herbalist, and educator.
They are currently the primary facilitator and maker for Savage Craic Apothecary and Mushrooms & Roses.
 
 Their lineage with cooking and community care starts at home with lessons from their mother, Laura Matthiessen, who raised them with domestic medicine, an ethic rooted in land relationship, and the skills to prepare food for shared nourishment.
 
 Laura's guidance wove together the importance of land work and the desire to develop deep relationships with our more-than-human comrades, as well as, the necessity of ongoing abolitionist political activism that builds queer resilience as a tool for resistance.
 
 This led to llE spending decades in community care networks, professional kitchens, and radical collectives; from social work to land work, Food Not Bombs to fine dining — where llE cultivated a passion for fermentation, health autonomy, disability justice, and food as medicine.

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 Their medicine draws from classical (Greco-Arabic), as well as, Gaelic, Cymry and other folk herbalism while being rooted in gentle spaces, harm reduction, the sciences and aos sídhe.
 
 While being profoundly influenced by a deep passion for books, llE also studies and practices radical medicine and cooking as an embodied, lifelong process that requires learning in direct collaboration with our flora, funga, fauna, and microbial kin.
 
 In addition to the land and their mother, sí is also honored to name among their teachers; Janet Kent, Dave Meesters, and Jen Stovall (Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine), Amanda David (The Peoples Medicine School), Lorna Mauney-Brodek (Herbalista Free School), Nicole Rose (Solidarity Apothecary), and collaborators/ comrades in Irish emergent tradition Tara Mairin agus Tara Baoth Mooney.
 
 llE is also active in the Queer Sheds Network and the Black Flag Herbal Clinic.

Savage Craic is in the process of becoming a not-for-profit social enterprise and is seeking land to steward towards the development of a queer sanctuary that will include a generative residency, creative studio, radical food forest, and community apothecary kitchen.

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Fermentation and plant medicine transforms and inspires, making for delicious ways to engage with our food, the land, and each other. These relationships speak to an ancient mutualism that started when we first shared breath with our plantcestors. 

This venture is motivated by our love for gathering together and breaking bread, making art, sharing stories, cultivating resilience, and building care networks.  

We are each microbial stewards, eco-celebrants, agents of community care, spiraling ever forward in this dance of life — our goal is to do so with ever growing purpose, to create positive relationships, rewild our lifeways and aid in the cultivation of decolonial futures for us all. 

When we first arrived in Éire, we were breaking bread with new friends when a comrade from Ennis referred to everything we were sharing as some “savage craic”, which felt like an induction to something very old, a birthing of something new — and a welcome home.

llewyn máire