Choose your theme.
Tell us your dream event, or run through the suggestions below. We shape the weekend around it.
Conversations, not lectures.
Not a holiday, and not a stiff executive course. Three exceptional voices, drawn out in conversation at the table and by the fire, under the Chatham House Rule.
Executive Leadership.
For boards, founders and leadership teams. A working grasp of Ireland’s economy and strategic position, paired with the judgement and influence leadership asks for.
Inspiration & Storytelling.
For groups who want to be moved as much as briefed. Resilience, performance and narrative, from people who have lived the story they tell.
Topic-Specific.
Choose the subject and we build the weekend around it, drawing on any theme below, or one entirely your own.
Choose your theme.
One of the themes below, or a bespoke one we shape with you.
We draw the shortlist, together.
You and we agree the three voices; the final lineup is chosen around your group.
Assemble your circle.
You gather your guests; we confirm the speakers and the programme.
We organise the rest.
The house, the meals, the timetable and the speakers’ transfers, all handled. Your guests make their own way to Drift.
Take the credit, and the memories.
You convened something remarkable; the conversations and the connections stay with everyone.
The long table, set for ten.
A table on any theme.
Explore the deck for inspiration or devise a theme to best suit your group.
Technology & AIa builder at the frontier
Artificial intelligence and the systems quietly reshaping work, from a country that runs a surprising share of the world’s technology.
- a founder who built at the frontier of AI
- a researcher shaping how the technology is made
- a leader who has put it to work across a global business
Investing & the Next Economywhere capital goes next
Where capital, technology and talent are heading, and who captures the value.
- an investor who backs companies before the world catches on
- a founder who built, sold, and started again
- an economist who reads where capital and talent head next
Law & Judgementa senior counsel
How power is held to account: the courts, the constitution and the judgement law asks of those who practise it.
- a senior counsel who has argued the cases that matter
- a judge who has sat at the top of the bench
- a reformer who has changed how justice is done
Women, Power & Leadershipa woman who has led at the top
Power: how it is won, how it is held, and how institutions change when the people inside them do.
- a chief executive who has run a major institution
- a figure from public life who has held high office
- a founder who built something formidable from nothing
Peace & the Borderlandsa peace negotiator
The peace, the border and the future of the island, held within sight of the line.
- a negotiator who helped broker the peace
- a public figure who lived the politics of the border
- a peacemaker who has done the same work abroad
Deep Historya historian of the long arc
The long sweep, from the people who raised Newgrange before the pyramids to the making of a nation.
- a historian who tells the long sweep of the island
- an archaeologist who reads the landscape and its monuments
- a writer who makes the deep past feel present
Border Historya chronicler of the frontier
Partition, the drumlin frontier and a line that made two states, told from a house almost upon it.
- a historian of partition and the frontier
- a writer who has walked and mapped the border
- a journalist who has chronicled life along the line
Mythology & the Otherworlda keeper of the old stories
A land of gods and heroes and the Otherworld a breath away, told in a house where the old stories feel close.
- a seanchaí who carries the old stories
- a writer who works in myth and the Otherworld
- a scholar of folklore and the Irish imagination
Books & the Reading Lifea writer on the books that shape a life
Books, memory and the stories that shape a life, part salon and part fireside.
- a novelist at the height of their craft
- a critic who reads for a living
- an editor who has shaped what a nation reads
Poetrya poet
Language, attention and how a few lines change the way a room sees the world.
- a poet of national standing
- a spoken-word voice who can hold a room
- a translator who carries poetry between languages
Irish Literaturea scholar of the canon
From Yeats and Joyce to Beckett and Heaney, and the writers working now.
- a scholar of the Irish canon
- a novelist working at the front of Irish writing today
- a biographer of the writers who made the tradition
Music & Songa voice that has filled the room
The living tradition, the sean-nós voice, and the session by the fire.
- a singer in the sean-nós tradition
- a songwriter whose work has travelled the world
- a musician who can turn an evening into a session
Resilienceone who came back from the brink
Pressure, recovery and the long game, with inspiration drawn from sport.
- an athlete who came back from the brink
- an adventurer who has tested the limits and returned
- someone who rebuilt a life after it fell apart
High Performancea coach to the elite
The winning mind and the systems behind it: preparation, marginal gains and the habits that hold.
- a coach who has built winning teams
- a champion who has performed at the very top
- a specialist who prepares the elite to win
Health & Longevitya doctor of the long life
The science and the practice of a longer, better life, in a house built around wellness of body and mind.
- a doctor at the forefront of longevity science
- a researcher into how we live longer and better
- a practitioner who turns the science into daily habit
Food, Land & Irelanda chef who farms what they cook
Irish food, farming and the taste of a place, tasted as much as told over long lunches in the open air.
- a chef who farms or forages what they cook
- a producer who has put Irish food on the world stage
- a writer who tells the land through its food
Astronomy & the Cosmosan astronomer, and the stars themselves
The cosmos and Ireland’s surprising place in it, under the dark skies of the borderlands, with a telescope on the lawn.
- an astronomer who studies the cosmos
- a scientist who makes the universe feel close
- a dark-sky guide who reads the night above the borderlands
The table runs under the Chatham House Rule. The names for your table are drawn and confirmed in private, and what is said at the table stays there.
A few moments at Drift.
The house, the fire, the water and the long table, among the drumlins of Monaghan.
Conversations built to your theme.
Every table brings exceptional guests and your group together for conversation around the table and by the fire. First-hand stories and guided discussion shape any subject you choose, from family enterprise and investment to technology, law, health, food or the arts.
- Expert-led sessions
- Guided discussion
Request the brochure, and a call.
Tell us a little and we will send the brochure and arrange a short, private call with the convenor.
The brochure is on its way.
It will reach your inbox shortly. We will follow up privately to arrange a short conversation with the convenor.
Take your place at the table.
A private gathering, by invitation.