Our Teachers and Contributors
Moon Daisies in our Garden
We are most fortunate to have a great team of experienced and gifted teachers and contributors who ensure we work to the highest standards. Our community of contributors continues to grow and develop as we progress along our never-ending journey of learning and teaching with the plants.
Nikki Darrell - Wexford
Nikki Darrell MBS BSc (Hons) Dip Phyt MIRH MNIMH MCPP MIFA is a Herbalist, Aromatherapist, Botanist, A Bean Luighis on the Bean Feasa path. From an early age Nikki was fascinated with plants; how to grow them, their therapeutic uses, their perfumes, and the food they provide. She started growing herbs at the age of 8, bought her first herbal at the age of 11 and has not looked back since.
Alex Duffy - Wexford
Alex Duffy. M.Sc. Sustainable Development - Education for Sustainable Development, Permaculture Design, Community Transition Facilitator, Ecovillage Design Education. A Fear Feasa on the Fear Luighis path. As a young parent and smallholder, Alex practised herbalism using Juliette de Bairacli Levy’s books along with A Modern Herbal, by Mrs M. Grieve to great effect and learned experientially, participating in developing a herb nursery at that time too.
Majella O'Riordan - Cork
Majella grew up in Kilnamartyr County Cork on a dairy farm. From an early age, she enjoyed walking in the fields, getting to know the plants, nooks, and crannies, and making little potions from the herbs in her mother’s garden. She completed her massage and aromatherapy training in 2006 and added on training in Reflexology, Reiki, Indian Head massage and Hot Stone massage.
Siobhan Norton - Cork
Siobhan qualified with The Plant Medicine School in 2014 and spent the following 5 years in the USA. She returned back to her native Coachford in early 2019 and began work setting up "The Apothecary at Rockgrove" which is both a practice and a growing site on 2 acres.
Jane Wallwork - Exmoor
Jane was first introduced to herbs by her grandmother as a child when tansy was taken to remedy a common childhood pestilence….. as the years progressed they would wander in the wild with the dog collecting wild edibles and return home to make a meal from the plants foraged.
Stacey Frampton - Exmoor
Stacey loves plants and the sense of peace, connection and wonder felt when hanging out with them.
She likes to take advantage of all the many ways we can learn about them and what they can teach us about ourselves. She really enjoys hearing about all the ways other people connect with plants andweave them into their lives, and supporting and facilitating this process.
Stacey has experience growing food in market gardens and alongside people experiencing mental health problems. She completed the apprenticeship in 2021, has a certificate in Sustainable Food and Farming and is currently studying for an RHS certificate in Horticulture.
Karen Davis - Northern UK
As a teenager Karen chose to do a school project on Herbal medicine and scoured the library for information. Karen was fascinated by how the herbs worked in the body and wanted to learn more. So, Karen qualified as a pharmacist as she thought this would satisfy her curiosity about how chemicals interact within the body.
As a pharmacist, Karen spent time working in a range of different cancer areas and specialised in the safe handling of anti-cancer medicines, building facilities for staff protection and education of other professionals about this. Also, she worked with cystic fibrosis patients, with mental illness and other areas. She has worked in hospitals, large companies and for a small rapidly growing start-up.
Fiona Fisher - Northern UK and Scotland
In 2021, Fiona completed the Wild Things 2 course with Grass Roots Remedies Co-op in Edinburgh and then began The Plant Medicine School’s Practitioner training course with Jane Wallwork in Exmoor. Over the past few years, Fiona has enjoyed organising events for Scottish students.
While she is completing the Herbal Practitioner course, Fiona works as an Advanced Clinical Massage Therapist in her hometown in Scotland. She is a mentor on the Plant Medicine School Scotland Apprenticeship course. She loves encouraging the enthusiasm and interest of the students on their plant medicine journey.
Tiarnan O’Sullivan -Wexford
My journey with the Plant Medicine School began in 2016 when I hopped on board at the last minute due to a cancellation in that year’s apprenticeship stream. I remember when Nikki called me to confirm my place I was working in one of the most supremely manicured gardens I have ever been in.
Everyone’s journey on the apprenticeship was unique. Some came to the class with a great deal of knowledge of holistic health, anatomy, alternative therapies and orthodox medicine, and some had even completed other herbal medicine courses and apprenticeships.
Silja Harms - Wexford
Silja started her apprenticeship at The Plant Medicine School in March 2014, completing her practitioner training in November of 2018. When The Plant Medicine School relocated to Hollyfort in 2020, she began working there. Initially supporting the creation of the herbal medicine garden and community field,
Silja found joy in assisting new apprentices on their learning journey and has extended this to include practitioner students. Her motto is “have fun” (which research has found to be the most efficient way of learning) and “keep it simple.”
“I have three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.” - Lao Tzu
Marie Reilly
Marie Reilly, MSc, MNIMH, MIRH, Dip Coun, has over 13 years experience as a Medical Herbalist. She qualified from the College of Phytotherapy in 2004 and subsequently completed the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine Masters Degree Programme, having conducted her research dissertation on the treatment of female functional infertility with herbal medicine. She has also studied Endobiogenic Medicine with Dr Jean Claude Lapraz, and Ayurveda with Dr Vasant Lad.
Andrew Chevalier
Andrew qualified from the School of Herbal Medicine in 1986 and has practised in London and Norfolk ever since. For 5 years in the early '90's, he worked at an NHS funded CAM clinic for the over-55's where he developed a special interest in working with older people.
In recent years he has specialised in treating people with long-term and age-related health problems such as chronic inflammatory and cardiovascular disease.
Christine Herbert
Christine Herbert qualified as a herbalist in 1997 and has been practising and learning herbal medicine ever since. She retired from practise in August 2019 in order to be able to write, teach and mentor.
During the years of her practise she added iridology, flower essence therapy, kinesiology and allergy therapy and used all those elements in her practice alongside a large proportion of nutritional advice. She specialised in digestive disorders and allergy/intolerance health issues, but all health issues were addressed in her practise.