Faculty
Lecturers at the Excelsior Herbal Medicine School Faculty
Danny O’Rawe ND MSc FIRH – Principal
Danny has been involved with herbal medicine for more than 30 years. He holds a Master of Science (MSc) degree in herbal medicine. He is an Honorary Fellow and former president of the Irish Register of Herbalists (IRH). He is also a Registered Naturopath (ND) and member of the General Naturopathic Council (GNC) and was formerly Senior Lecturer in Nutrition for the College of Naturopathic Medicine. He also holds a Diploma in Aromatherapy.
He is the co-author with Keith Robertson FNIMH of Celtic Herbal Medicine (2018). His forthcoming book Tacit Knowledge and Traditional Medicine is due in 2023. Danny has written numerous papers for various publications and is a campaigner for the further understanding, preservation and advancement of Western Herbal Medicine.
He has taught at a number of herbal schools and at international conferences and symposia. He is one of the founders of the annual HerbFeast event in Ireland. He is a member of the American Herbalist Guild. He is a Royal Horticultural Society trained grower with over 25 years’ experience in organic cultivation. He is a researcher, activist, writer and consultant clinician with a busy multidisciplinary practice in Belfast. He is also the principal of Excelsior.
Dr. Graeme Tobyn PhD
Graeme is a senior lecturer in the School of Community Health and Midwifery, at the University of Central Lancashire. His clinical background is in herbal medicine, having practised for 26 years including a period in the UK National Health Service.
He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a member of the Royal Historical Society, the British Society for the History of Pharmacy and the British Herbal Medicine Association. He is the author of two books including Culpeper’s Medicine, and several book chapters and articles; co-author of The Western Herbal Tradition, and with several new publications forthcoming.
Jo Goodyear BSc, MIRH
Jo is a professionally qualified medical herbalist based in Blackrock, Cork City. She is also a qualified botanist and holds a BSc in Botany. She also trained in Western Herbal medicine, with an emphasis on using local and naturalised plants. She is a professional member of the Irish Register of Herbalists.
In addition to running her practice, she teaches herbal medicine and leads foraging and plant walks within County Cork. Jo is also one of the organizers of the annual Herb Feast festival, Ireland’s largest annual herbalist event.
Keith Robertson MSc FNIMH
Keith is a Fellow of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists. He is a much respected visionary and pioneer of traditional energetic and contemplative approaches in professional herbal training in the UK. After serving on the NIMH Council, inspired by his late friend and mentor Christopher Hedley, he then established the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine in Glasgow with his ex-wife Maureen in 1992. They ran the School together for the next 18 years training to BSc (Hons) and MSc level; inspired in this by a vegan philosophy and a contemplative and experiential research approach first suggested by the polymath Johann von Goethe.
In recognition of his vision with SSHM, as well as his work with the NIMH and European Accreditation Boards, he was awarded a Fellowship in 2004 in acknowledgement of his services to herbal education. A correspondence pre-course and an international apprenticeship programme are now run from his herb farm on the Isle of Arran, which researches herbal medicines and vegan organic growing techniques. He has been in practice since 1989.
Nicola Dee Kelly BSc MNIMH
Nicola is a Welsh medical herbalist who has a BSc from the renowned School of Phytotherapy formerly at Bodle Street Green in East Sussex. She was Tutor in Natural Medicine and Plant Appreciation at Wild Medicine Chest. She led a busy practice in Wales and was a guide at the National Botanical Garden of Wales before relocating to Scotland where she is now Course Administrator for the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine.
Vilma Matuleviciute MSc, ND, BCST, FIRH
Vilma is a Lithuanian Medical Herbalist, Naturopath and Craniosacral therapist, practicing in Dublin for 15 years. She has a background in biochemistry and a Master’s degree in Food Science, and also a Master’s degree in Western Herbal Medicine from the University of Westminster, London. She was Herbal Medicine course director and a senior lecturer at the College of Naturopathic Medicine for 12 years. She regularly teaches various classes and courses on herbal medicine and naturopathy and runs a monthly low-cost student clinic for the public at the Red Stables, St.Anne’s Park in Dublin.
Vilma is involved in setting up the first Phytotherapy (Western Herbal Medicine) bachelor’s degree course in Lithuania at the Klaipeda University. Currently Vilma is the President of the Irish Register of Herbalists (IRH) and the vice-Chair of FICTA (Federation of Irish Complementary Therapy Associations).
Kevin Orbell-McSean MIRH MNIMH
Kevin qualified thirty years ago having successfully completed a course at the School of Phytotherapy in Kent, England, after which he joined the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, a UK based professional association founded in 1864. He joined the Irish Register of Herbalists in 2015. Since 1990 he has practiced from the Evergreen Clinic of Natural Medicine,in Cork City.
In the early 1990’s Kevin was a founder member of Ireland’s first professional association for medical herbalists, the Irish Association of Medical Herbalists, and served as the Chairman/President of the association for several years. From 2007-2011 he served on the National Institute’s Professional Ethics Working Group, adjudicating on ethical queries and determining ethical policy, as well as being a Professional Conduct Officer, dealing with professional conduct complaints and ensuring the compliance of practitioners with our Code of Ethics.
Since 2011 Kevin has also lectured at the Plant Medicine School, based in Coachford, County Cork, and provides clinical training for students in my clinic. Kevin’s grandfather was Albert Orbell, a herbalist who was also an NIMH member and a well-rgarded practitioner in London many years ago.
David Winston, RH (AHG)
David Winston is an Herbalist and Ethnobotanist with 50 years of training in Chinese, Western/Eclectic and South Eastern US/Cherokee herbal traditions. He has been in clinical practice for over 40 years and is an herbal consultant to physicians, herbalists and researchers throughout the USA, Europe and Canada. David is the founder/director of the Herbal Therapeutics Research Library and the dean of David Winston’s Center for Herbal Studies, a two-year training program in clinical herbal medicine.
He is an internationally known lecturer and frequently teaches at medical schools, professional symposia and herb conferences. He is the president of Herbalist & Alchemist, Inc. a manufacturer that produces herbal products that blend the art and science of the world’s great herbal traditions.
In addition, David is a founding/professional member of the American Herbalist Guild, and he is on the American Botanical Council and the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia Advisory Boards.
He was a contributing author to American Herbalism, published in 1992 by Crossings Press, and the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP) , 2000-2018, the author of Saw Palmetto for Men & Women, Storey, 1999 and Herbal Therapeutics, Specific Indications For Herbs & Herbal Formulas, HTRL, 2014 (10th edition) and the co-author of Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina and Stress Relief, Healing Arts Press, 2007 (the new edition will be published September 2019), and Winston and Kuhn’s Herbal Therapy and Supplements; A Scientific and Traditional Approach, Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott, 2008. David has also published hundreds of articles in medical and botanical medicine journals and conference proceedings.
He is also a member of the AHPA Expert Advisory Council that created the second edition of the Botanical Safety Handbook, CRC Press, published in 2013 (3rd edition in press).
In 2011 David was a recipient of the AHPA Herbal Insights award. In 2013 he received the Natural Products Association Clinicians award and was awarded a fellowship by the Irish Register of Herbalists. In 2018 he was the Mitchell visiting scholar at Bastyr University.
Professor Bevan Clare
Bevin Clare is a clinical herbalist, nutritionist, mother, plant lover, and a Professor at the Maryland University of Integrative Health (MUIH) in the Master’s of Science in Clinical Herbalism program. She holds a MSc in Infectious Disease from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and serves on as an adjunct faculty member at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and the New York Chiropractic College.
As a world wanderer, Bevin loves learning about the use of herbal medicines and spices in food as therapeutics and believes in the application of botanicals in daily, dietary preparations whenever possible. She is a board member of the United Plant Savers, a group working to protect at-risk medicinal plants in North America. Bevin has been the President of the American Herbalists Guild since 2015 and the Vice-President since 2010, where she works with an active membership and council to promote professionalism in herbal medicine grounded in quality, diversity, equity and equality.
Fred Gillam LCGI, Cert Ed, MSET
Fred Gillam is the co-founder, with his partner Natascha Kenyon, of the UK Medicinal Mushrooms Conference. For the past 5 years he has been working to inform the grass-roots of the herbalist community about working synergistically with mushrooms and herbs and how to bring medicinal mushrooms into the herbalists’ repertoire.
Fred is a well known forager and has appeared numerous times on the radio and television in the UK, including foraging for mushrooms with Gino D’Acampo, as a guest on radio 2’s Farming Today programme and with Jeremy Vine talking about Poisonous Plants. He has given presentations on mushrooms to audiences at Tate Britain and live on stage at Chris Evan’s Carfest.
Fred has given seminars to a number of professional bodies and academic institutions, including the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, International Register of Consultant Herbalists & Homeopaths and the Associated Register of Colonic Hydrotherapists in the UK, as well as to the IRH in Ireland. Fred & Natascha appeared together as guests at Herbfeast in Ireland in 2017.
Fred is the author of Poisonous Plants in Great Britain and his articles on Medicinal Mushrooms have been published in The Herbalist, the Journal of the IRCH&H and at www.sensorysolutions.co.uk. Together with his partner Natascha he runs the Avebury Community Practice, a donation based traditional herbal dispensary which serves the community of 8 parishes where they live, grow herbs and keep bees in south west England. He is a licensed NADA Protocol Ear Acupuncture Practitioner.
Dylan Warren-Davis, MNIMH
Dylan grew up on farm run utilizing organic principles of cultivation and husbandry. His mother Ann Warren-Davis, FNIMH, was a successful medical herbalist in London, as a result, his teenage years were spent cultivating, harvesting and gathering wild-crafted herbs for making herbal tinctures. Dylan worked as a dispenser while a student of herbal medicine.
He qualified as a medical herbalist with the National Institute of Medical Herbalists in 1982, also winning the “Arthur Barker Award” for 2nd highest exam result. He has been in herbal practice from 1982 to 1997 when he relocated to Australia. He has been specifically researching the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of the European herbal tradition. He has worked in the commercial manufacturing of herbal tinctures, as well as being a consultant to the herbal industry in the UK and Australia.
Over several decades he has established a photographic collection of more than 2,000 medicinal plants. Dylan has researched and written about herbal approaches to treating autism. He researched the emerging field of glycobiology, and its importance to protein synthesis, protein activation, cellular communication and epigenetics, along with its implications for herbal medicine.
In 2003 Stella and Dylan, as husband and wife team, founded The Health Bank in Llandeilo, Wales as a centre for herbal medicine and regenerative nutrition. They have travelled extensively together looking at different cultures and herbal traditions. “A Welsh Herbal” is their first written collaboration. Stella wrote the herbal, historical and philosophical texts. She also compiled the legends and enhanced the folk stories by weaving herbal lore into them. Dylan contributed the photographs, wrote additional text on humoral physiology, digitally enhanced the woodcuts, designed the artwork and constructed the interactive CD-rom format.
Marie Reilly, MSc MNIHM DipCoun EFR
Marie Reilly is an experienced Medical Herbalist and teacher. She qualified from the College of Phytotherapy in 2004 having conducted her undergraduate research dissertation on the use of Herbs in the treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS/ME).
She subsequently completed the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine Masters Degree Programme, after completing research 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. She currently runs a multidisciplinary clinic in Lismore, Co.Waterford, where she maintains a busy herbal medicine practice.
Marie previously taught on the BSc Herbal Sciences course at Cork Institute of Technology. She currently teaches on the practitioner training courses at The Plant Medicine School in Cork and Betonica in the UK, and regularly supervises training clinics for students from various courses in the UK and Ireland. She has lectured at the Cork Institute of Technology Herbal Science Symposium; at Botanica 2014 (Trinity College Dublin); and at the National Institute of Medical Herbalists Annual Conference. She is also on the editing panel for Tilia Magazine, a professional publication for practicing herbalists, and regularly provides numerous CPD seminars on various subjects for practitioners of herbal medicine.
Marie is also a qualified Emergency First Responder, and works in conjunction with a Medical Doctor and Paramedic, to provide emergency first aid in the local community as part of the Lismore Community First Response Team, a voluntary service.
Applications Open
We are currently accepting applications for the next herbal apprenticeship intake.