The Story
Pelagus was born from my genuine wish to broaden the work I began with in Sailing into Wellness where we support people through sailing. At Pelagus we provide individualized and tailored services, to support and involve individuals in building their recovery. By doing this, they take ownership of their recovery now and into the future.
We support people to trust themselves, seeing the value and strength in them. We challenge ourselves to push through the barriers, allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable but safe in a new environment. We connect with nature in many ways: hiking, sailing, canoeing, windsurfing, golfing, and horse riding. Our experiences in nature give us the material to reflect on our own lives.
That’s how Pelagus came to life. I am really looking forward to bringing people on a journey to have the courage and strength to build a new life.
Behind Pelagus
The connection with nature speaks to us. It transforms us in ways that feel effortless. Suddenly, you find yourself deeply connected to a part of yourself that’s been waiting. That part might still cause pain. But you have the acceptance and commitment to observe it, and to transform it.
Sailing the vast seas helped me do this. It changed my life. And my wish is to give others that same experience.
Adventure therapy is not just about physical activity, it’s about engaging with life. It’s about stepping out of your comfort zone, facing challenges, and discovering new strengths.
Every hike, paddle, climb, or breath in nature becomes a metaphor for change.
How Pelagus Works
We begin before you arrive. Every guest has a personal conversation with our team before the retreat starts — to understand where you are in your recovery, what you need most, and how to build a programme that is genuinely yours.
During the retreat, you move through a carefully designed sequence of adventure, therapeutic work, and reflection. Every element is chosen to challenge, restore, and equip — not just for the ten days, but for the life you’re returning to.
By the time you leave, you have more than an experience. You have a Recovery Map — a practical, personal plan for the months ahead — and a peer accountability structure that continues beyond departure.
The Team Behind the Programme
Pelagus programmes are delivered by a team of qualified clinicians, therapeutic practitioners, and adventure specialists. Every person working with guests has been selected for their expertise and their understanding of recovery as a whole-life challenge.
Colin Healy | Co-Founder & Programme Director
Colin built Pelagus because he kept watching the same thing happen: people completing treatment, returning to their lives, and relapsing, not because they had stopped trying, but because the environment around them hadn’t changed. Before Pelagus, he co-founded Sailing Into Wellness, spending years working with individuals using adventure and purposeful time in nature to create meaningful change. His approach is direct, experience-led, and grounded in the belief that recovery isn’t about avoiding relapse, it’s about building something strong enough that relapse no longer makes sense. He leads every intake conversation personally.
Jack McMahon | Co-Founder & Client Experience Director
Jack came to Pelagus with twenty-five years of senior leadership delivering high-touch, seamless experiences for discerning clients across complex, multinational operations. Addiction has touched his own family, and that experience is what moved him from operational excellence to recovery work. At Pelagus, he oversees every element of the client journey from first contact to aftercare, holding to a single principle: that excellence should be invisible, so clients can focus entirely on their recovery.
Cara Byrne | Clinical Lead, Psychotherapy & Nature-Based Mental Health
Specialisms: trauma, burnout, addiction. MSc Integrative Psychotherapy · Certified Mountain Professional · EMDR · CBT-E · Mindfulness.
Cara is Ireland’s first Hiking Psychotherapist, a title that speaks to a clinical approach built around the evidence that nature-based therapy reaches people differently than office-based work. She founded Hike Psych in 2020 and serves as Clinical Lead for Get Up Adventures. Her specialisms include neurodivergence, burnout, anxiety, trauma, and addiction. She holds advanced training in EMDR and CBT-E, is a certified mountain professional, and is a recognised voice on nature-based wellbeing in Irish national media.
Daniel Murphy | Clinical Dietitian, Nutritional Recovery
Multi-award-winning dietitian · Founder, Apex Nutrition · Evidence-based clinical practice.
Daniel is a multi-award-winning dietitian whose clinical practice is built around one insight: that nutrition is not separate from recovery, it is part of the mechanism. He founded Apex Nutrition and works globally with individuals, clinical organisations, and corporate clients. At Pelagus, every meal is purposeful, designed to support the neurological and physiological demands of active therapeutic work. Food at Pelagus is not hospitality. It is care.
Tony O’Reilly | Psychotherapist, Addiction & Recovery
Specialism: gambling and behavioural addiction. Co-author, Tony10 (bestselling recovery memoir) · Lived experience of gambling addiction and recovery.
Tony brings something credentials alone cannot provide: a first-person understanding of what addiction costs and what recovery demands. He is the co-author of Tony10, the bestselling account of his gambling addiction and subsequent recovery. He combines lived experience with professional psychotherapeutic training to work with guests navigating the isolation and shame that surrounds addiction, particularly the kinds that don’t get talked about. His presence changes the quality of conversation in a room.
Sinéad Pollock Orr | Outdoor Practitioner & Adventure Therapy Specialist
Trauma-informed outdoor facilitation · MSc Mindfulness-Based Wellbeing · Co-Founder, Headspace Adventures · 25+ years nature-based practice.
Sinéad has spent over twenty-five years using nature-based experience to foster personal growth, resilience, and wellbeing. She co-founded Headspace Adventures to deliver adventure therapy at scale and has undertaken major expeditions across Greenland, the Alps, and Scandinavia. Her practice is explicitly trauma-informed: she creates environments where people can face challenges at their own pace. She holds professional outdoor leadership certifications and advanced qualifications in mindfulness-based wellbeing.
Richard Molloy | Recovery Mentor • Ocean & Adventure Guide
Richie Molloy is an Achill Island-based Recovery Mentor and Adventure Guide who uses the healing power of nature and his own lived experience with addiction to help others rebuild their lives. Having moved to the island five years ago to find peace, he discovered that true recovery is about finding a new way to live through honesty, courage, and connection. He facilitates this healing by guiding clients through ocean and nature-based activities like surfing, paddle boarding, e-foiling, and hiking. Grounded in compassion, Richie ensures people feel safe and understood as they use outdoor movement to build confidence and emotional wellbeing. Driven by his belief that a new life is always possible, he helps individuals use the freedom of the sea to reconnect with themselves and thrive.
Gerry Ryan | Addiction Counsellor & Recovery Specialist
Ireland’s first CRA Trainer · ATI, ICHAS, UCD · Group therapy specialist.
Gerry began his career at Coolmine Therapeutic Community and has spent decades across the full spectrum of addiction services: prison work, family support, day-programme design, and community-based recovery. He founded the Tolka River Project (established 2008) and is Ireland’s first certified Community Reinforcement Approach Trainer, delivering CRA training to Dublin Simon Community, Merchants Quay Ireland, and the HSE. His understanding of recovery as a structural, community-level challenge informs Pelagus’s post-retreat accountability approach.
Whatever brings you here, we’re glad you found us. Every conversation is handled with complete
discretion — no pressure, no obligation, just a quiet and honest conversation about what’s possible.
