The IOSAS Centre (Island of saints and scholars) and Celtic Prayer garden.

The Celtic Prayer Garden is Ireland’s only such garden and is set in six acres of natural bog land, approximately 10 minutes out of the city centre of Derry.

Here we invite you to step back in time to an Ireland of saints and scholars, a people who had a very strong sense of creation, a robust attitude to religious practice and who believed in a close relationship with nature.

Walk back in time to an era when holy men and women built their cell at, or close by to, places deemed sacred by the Celts; bogs, springs, and groves. Indeed the name Derry derives from the Irish - Doire Colmcille means St Columba’s Oak-grove, a sacred place where he built his monastery.

During your visit you can visit our reconstructed Irish Celtic round tower. You will walk into and experience early Celtic monastic life, simple and solitary, given to prayer and contemplation by visiting our reconstructed Celtic ‘bee-hive’ cell as well as an early monastic cave dwelling.