A Castle, a Study Group, and No Single Goddess

The Fellowship of Isis began as a family project. Olivia Robertson and her brother Lawrence Durdin-Robertson, with his wife Pamela, had run a meditation and study circle at their home, Clonegal Castle in County Carlow, Ireland, since 1963. At the Spring Equinox of 1976 they opened it as a formal religious fellowship, dedicated to the worship of the Goddess under whatever name a member already knew her.

That last point is the Fellowship's defining structural choice. It asks nothing exclusive of its members: no renunciation of another faith, no single closed pantheon, no central dogma to sign onto. A local group, called an Iseum or a Lyceum depending on its founding charter, sets its own practice, and the Fellowship's role is closer to a network than a church. There is no membership fee.

That looseness let it spread further than a more demanding organization might have. Reported membership runs into the low thousands across centres on several continents, though the Fellowship keeps no formal central roll, consistent with the same non-dogmatic instinct that shaped its founding. Clonegal Castle itself remains its symbolic and administrative heart.