Caitriona is an Engineering and Technical Graphics teacher in a mixed ability school with a significant cohort of students with special needs. She is very involved in the pastoral care of the students. She set up the Rainbows programme for students suffering with bereavement or separation. She also runs an after school drop-in mindfulness centre for students.

Caitriona owns and breeds horses and competes with Mo Chara riding club, based in Kilrainey Equestrian Centre, Moyvalley, Co Kildare

She has a major interest in horses and how they can benefit all types of people and disabilities. She has had horses since she was 12 and has experienced, first hand, the benefits of contact with them. This led her to discover Natural Horsemanship and Equine Assisted Learning and Therapy as avenues in which others can benefit from horses.

Equine Assisted Learning and Therapy

Caitriona became an Eagala Certified Equine Assisted Learning and Therapy facilitator in 2011. Since then she has run EAL sessions for students in her school, youths at risk (in conjunction with a Youth Diversion Project) and people with special needs. She works with a psychotherapist, Jean Robertson,  running therapy sessions for people of all ages and abilities. T’he latest of which used horses to teach SPHE as part of Wellbeing. Read about it here

Caitriona lives in Kildare, with her husband, daughter and new son, horses, dogs, lambs and ducks. Her aim is to help people to experience and benefit from, the power of horses.

Natural Horsemanship

In 2010, Caitriona began working towards becoming a fully qualified Instructor of Monty Robert’s Methods of Natural Horsemanship. She completed her Introductory Course in Monty Roberts methods of Natural Horsemanship in April 2012. That October she headed to Monty Roberts International Learning Centre in California to do her Advanced Course. The following year saw her pass her exams at the MRILC and was invited back to do the three month internship.  In 2014 she spent three months as an Intern and at the end was awarded her Instructorship. She became the third Monty Roberts Instructor in Ireland. She runs courses, clinic, demos and one-to-one sessions for horses and owners. She has assisted Monty on his world tours in the UK, Denmark and organised (along with other instructors) Monty’s demos in Ireland in March 2018.