REVEALED: The sinister underworld of illegal ayahuasca retreats in Ireland  - where vulnerable people pay thousands for 'healing' and risk triggering a mental health crisis or even psychosis...

Published: 21:39, 3 April 2026 | Updated: 21:40, 3 April 2026 The house was tucked away in the Wicklow countryside, a remote Airbnb you would never find without precise directions. Inside, 15 strangers sat in a circle on the wooden floor, the air thick with nervous anticipation. The lights were low, flickering softly against the walls, and a gentle chant echoed through the room. On a low table in the centre rested a simple cup of dark, bitter liquid. One by one, they drank, the air growing heavier as the cup moved on. David was 32 and from Kildare when he first tried ayahuasca, almost three years ago. He had been carrying unresolved trauma for years – ‘family dynamics, early childhood stuff, domestic violence I hadn’t really understood’. Traditional therapy had helped, but it never delivered the deep healing that he felt he needed. He was in what he called ‘no man’s land’, studying to become a therapist, struggling mentally, drifting. His name, like others in this piece, has been changed. He found ayahuasca on Instagram, through ads and testimonials that painted it as a ‘transformative’ healing experience. ‘I thought it was too expensive,’ he admitted, until his brother came home from a retreat, fervent in his belief that David had to try it. That was the tipping point. ‘At first it was incredible – phenomenal, actually,’ he says, recounting that first experience. Ninety minutes after drinking, he lay on the floor blindfolded, moving through geometric colours and shifting patterns. ‘Your sense of self is just... gone,’ he says. ‘Ayahuasca gets to places you can’t reach consciously.’ Ayahuasca is a powerful Amazonian psychoactive brew long used in spiritual and healing ceremonies by Indigenous communities in Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador. Named from the Quechuan term for ‘spirit rope’, it is made by boiling the DMT-rich leaves of Psychotria viridis with the Banisteriopsis caapi vine. The infusion induces vivid visions, emotional catharsis and profound shifts in perception. [DMT is Dimethyltryptamine, a powerful hallucinogen]. Despite its plant medicine reputation, ayahuasca remains a potent hallucinogen, and unregulated ceremonies carry significant psychological and physical risks for some participants today. Ayahuasca is a powerful Amazonian psychoactive brew long used in spiritual and healing ceremonies by South American indigenous communities   For David, the first night brought visions of ancestral trauma. The second night brought bliss, love and healing, ‘like reorganising the furniture in your mind’. Then came the booster dose – a decision he now describes as catastrophic. ‘Huge mistake. One of the worst decisions of my life.’ What followed was a brutally intense psychedelic descent, so overwhelming that facilitators resorted to rapé, a powerful herbal snuff, to force him to purge. ‘I vomited 20 years of trauma,’ he says. ‘It was horrific, but also cleansing.’ David insists ayahuasca changed his life. ‘There was a David before ayahuasca,’ he says. ‘And a David after.’ He has since taken it seven more times and is now training to become a psychedelic facilitator and therapist. But the more he learned, the more he saw what he had missed. ‘Some people should not be on these retreats,’ he says bluntly. ‘It’s just not up for debate.’ If someone is running retreats every weekend with 20 people, charging huge amounts, offering multiple substances, that is a red flag, he says. ‘If the answers about screening or aftercare are vague, walk away,’ he adds. Rachel’s story is far darker. Now in her 30s, living in the south of Ireland, she describes an experience that has shaped – and destabilised – a decade of her life. She had been in limbo after college, unsure of her job, her living situation, her identity. She moved into a country manor outside Dublin where a group of people were experimenting with ‘conscious living’ and alternative healing. ‘They weren’t professionals,’ she says. ‘It was basically a group of hippie-ish older people who thought they’d hold a retreat.’ They brought in ‘shamans’ who claimed to have trained in Peru. The group followed strict diets – no protein, no alcohol, no spices – and Rachel felt pressured to participate. ‘It felt like if you didn’t go along with it, you weren’t part of the community.’ She was terrified. Having struggled with eating disorders, the idea of vomiting – a key part of ayahuasca ceremonies – was deeply triggering. But she drank the dark brown liquid anyway. ‘With acid, you still see the world around you, just altered,’ she told me. ‘With ayahuasca, you’re not embodied any more, you’re in a completely different dimension of reality.’ For hours she was guided by a feminine presence through intricate geometric tasks. When she returned to ordinary consciousness, she was fragile. The real collapse came months later. ‘I developed severe derealisation,’ she said. ‘Driving, I genuinely believed nothing existed. Not me, not the car, not the road.’ This state persisted for many years. She received no aftercare, no follow-up, not even a check-in from these so-called gurus. ‘It was just, “Thanks, give us €150, goodbye.”’ Rachel is scathing about the booming Irish ayahuasca industry. ‘It’s the Wild West. Who’s checking what’s in the brew? Who’s checking if people are safe? Who’s checking for psychosis, for trauma, for eating disorders? Nobody.’ She is also blunt about the money. ‘It’s preying on vulnerable people,’ she says. ‘If it’s real healing, why does it cost thousands? Why can’t they have a normal job and do this for the right reasons?’ Retreats are promoted discreetly through private Facebook groups, wellness networks and Instagram algorithms targeting anyone who has searched for anxiety relief, trauma recovery or alternative healing. Professional-looking websites offer downloadable brochures, glowing testimonials and booking systems as polished as any legitimate wellness retreat. The language is warm, spiritual and carefully non-specific – ‘plant medicine journeys’, ‘sacred ceremony’, ‘integration support’ – and nowhere does it mention that the central ingredient is a drug that is illegal to possess, supply or administer under Irish law. A search of international retreat booking platforms returns listings for ayahuasca ceremonies across Ireland in 2026 – in Wicklow, Carlow, Kilkenny, Mayo and beyond, with prices ranging from €339 for a weekend to over €1,500 for a multi-day residential experience. One Irish company makes no attempt to conceal what it offers. Phoenix Healing, based in Co. Carlow, openly advertises ayahuasca, psilocybin and Bufo ceremonies on its website, phoenixhealing.ie. Psilocybin is a classic hallucinogen produced by mushrooms, while Bufo is a psychedelic substance found in the secretion from the parotoid glands of the Bufo alvarius toad. The Phoenix Healing site promises ‘safe and transformative spaces’ in which to ‘embark on profound healing journeys’, speaks of ‘preparation, ceremony and integration’, and describes a ‘lifetime community’ for those who attend. Founders Stacey and Gerard write at length about their own healing journeys through the same substances they now administer to paying clients – Stacey describing childhood trauma, addiction and suicidal despair; Gerard writing of depression, a suicide attempt and the transformation he found through ayahuasca and Bufo. Both describe themselves as trained facilitators working within a framework of integrity, compassion and care. The website makes no reference to the legal status of the substances at the centre of its work. It offers no detail on how an acute psychiatric crisis during a ceremony would be managed, nor does it set out what qualifications are required to guide a group of participants through one of the most intense psychedelic experiences known to medicine. Phoenix Healing did not respond to a request for comment and the site remains live at the time of writing. When the Mail contacted An Garda Síochána, the force confirmed that possession of DMT is illegal under the Misuse of Drugs Acts 1977 to 2016, that it is an offence to cultivate, import, export, produce or supply it except under Ministerial licence, and that through Operation Tara it continues to target those involved in the illegal drug trade across Ireland. It confirmed that in recent years it has seized ‘a small quantity of suspected DMT’ and that investigations are ongoing. Yet retreat operators advertise ceremonies on public websites and invite visitors to download their brochures. Michael Ledden has spent years watching what happens when it goes wrong. A fully accredited psychotherapist and chief executive of PsyCare Ireland – a charity providing mental health support at festivals and events – Ledden has also worked at a licensed psychedelic retreat centre in the Netherlands, where clinical standards are non-negotiable. Psychotherapist Michael Ledden of PsyCare Ireland He offers psychedelic integration therapy: support for people in the aftermath of difficult or damaging experiences. ‘People started getting in touch because they’d had a negative experience,’ he says. What they described was consistent. Large ceremonies – sometimes 30 people in a single circle – with minimal individual attention and no psychological safety net. Multiple substances across the same weekend, each one an additional charge. ‘Some places do ayahuasca, then Bufo and sometimes Kambo,’ he says of the substance that comes from frogs. ‘There are multiple processes, and often every one is extra money.’ The consequences range from prolonged anxiety and disorientation to far more serious. ‘Some can’t hold down a job,’ he reveals. ‘Others are completely disorientated, very panicky. There can be a complete distortion of someone’s world view – suddenly questioning, am I real? Is God real? Are we all God? Sometimes it can trigger something akin to a psychosis.’ He has heard of people attempting to take their own lives in the aftermath of particularly difficult ceremonies. He has clients for whom a single encounter, decades earlier, has never left them. ‘Some of these places are charging €2,000 a weekend,’ he says. ‘It’s just a cash cow. What every business wants is a repeat customer – and I wouldn’t say some of them would be too scrupulous about saying, “you had a ceremony two months ago, you need to work on that first”. It would probably be a case of: come back and have more.’ He draws a sharp contrast with regulated settings. At the Netherlands centre where he worked, no participant was accepted with a history of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or psychosis, or whose immediate family carried those conditions. Anyone suicidal within the previous five years was screened out. Medications were reviewed, no one returned within six months and integration therapy was built in for months afterwards. ‘If they’re not asking about your mental health history, your current mental health, your medications, your physical health, I’d run a mile,’ he says. The medical perspective is even sharper. Dr Colin O’Gara, consultant psychiatrist and head of addiction services at St John of God Hospital, and clinical professor of psychiatry at University College Dublin, says he regularly sees patients planning to attend ayahuasca ceremonies abroad. He warns every one of them. ‘Hallucinogens can trigger psychosis in some individuals,’ he said. ‘The problem is you just don’t know who is genetically vulnerable. That’s the danger.’ Professor Colin O'Gara, consultant psychiatrist The romantic framing of ayahuasca as ‘plant medicine’ has created dangerous misconceptions. ‘These substances create very strong alterations in brain chemistry,’ he says. ‘That’s the main concern.’ There is no predictive test, nothing can determine in advance who will safely navigate an ayahuasca journey and who may be tipped into a psychiatric emergency. Clinical psychedelic trials – such as those currently under way at Trinity College Dublin – operate in controlled environments with rigorous psychological and medical screening, trained clinicians and structured integration therapy afterwards. Underground retreats offer none of this: no oversight, no medical review, no emergency plan, no accountability. ‘It’s too high-risk,’ Dr O’Gara says. ‘Some people will be massively triggered and the truth is, we can’t predict who.’ However, to understand how this industry has flourished, you have to look at what people are going through. HSE waiting lists for mental health services stand at more than 10,000. In some parts of the country, adults wait years for a first appointment. Trauma, depression, addiction and anxiety so severe it has become disabling are not conditions that can be put on hold, and the people carrying them are those most likely to be drawn toward a retreat that promises rapid, profound relief and asks very few questions in return. ‘People are desperate,’ says Ledden. ‘Ireland’s mental health crisis is driving them into the arms of unqualified strangers.’ Ireland could regulate, creating licensed pathways for psychedelic-assisted therapy under genuine clinical supervision, as Australia has done. It could enforce the law that already exists. It could fund harm reduction services and free integration support for those already struggling. The HSE has published safety guidance about DMT on its drugs.ie website. Beyond that, the official response amounts to almost nothing. Rachel is only now, a decade on, beginning to understand the full weight of what happened to her. ‘You can’t tell a 22-year-old anything,’ she says. ‘It just won’t work. I’m really lucky I didn’t experience something even more severe. But I did have really bad mental health for a very long time afterwards. It’s only now that I’m realising the actual impact.’ Phoenix Healing is still advertising on its website today. The retreats are still being booked and somewhere in rural Ireland this weekend, another group of people – desperate, hopeful and entirely unprotected – will gather in a rented farmhouse, drink the brew and place their minds in the hands of someone who answers to nobody. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.