Module 7
Power and Authority
“The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.”
~ James Larkin
This module turns toward one of Irish life's deepest, most enduring themes: power and authority. Larkin's words hold a centuries-long tension between submission and resistance, reverence and rebellion, silence and voice.
Before colonization, Ireland held its own systems of law and leadership - the Brehon laws and clan-based structures rooted in kinship and wisdom. Colonization imposed a centralised, hierarchical, patriarchal order through violence, dispossession, and cultural suppression; the Church added a layer of protection and control.
What's left is a complex inheritance: fierce resilience and resistance alongside a deep mistrust or fear of authority, living on in our bodies, families, institutions, and collective psyche - shaping how we lead, respond to conflict, and relate to money and resources, what we earn, give, and steward.
Guided by Karen McAllister, drawing on decades of contemplative practice and community leadership, we explore what it means to rise - not by overpowering others, but by standing fully in our own authority.
Karen McAllister
Karen McAllister is an Irish-born meditation teacher, money coach, and Co-Executive Director of Clear Sky Meditation Centre in British Columbia, Canada. For over twenty-six years, she undertook a deep apprenticeship with her teachers, Qapel (Doug Duncan) and Catherine Pawasarat Sensei, exploring the nature of power, authority, leadership, and human transformation through contemplative practice, psychology, and intentional community. As a founding member and leader of Clear Sky, Karen has spent more than two decades navigating the lived realities of shared leadership, governance, conflict, and collective responsibility. Born and raised in Ireland, she brings together lived experience, twenty-six years of contemplative training, and over two decades of community leadership to explore how inherited patterns of power and authority continue to shape Irish identity, relationships, and communities across generations and throughout the diaspora.
“At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure.”
~ Seamus Heaney