Introducing Rowan Gate Press

We’re delighted to announce that Rowan Gate Press has been chosen as the independent publishing house for our ShadowScript clients. Created with a clear focus on quality, individuality and author-led publishing, Rowan Gate Press will provide a dedicated home for books developed through ShadowScript and will house a range of commercial titles.
The aim is simple: to give every book the care, professionalism and identity it deserves, while allowing authors to retain a strong sense of ownership over their work.

The rowan tree has a particularly rich place in Irish folklore and imaginative tradition. In Irish, the rowan is 'caorthann' and in folklore it was widely regarded as a protective tree. There is also a strong sense that the tree occupied a liminal space between the ordinary world and the supernatural one, and some traditions treated it as a “gentle” tree that should not be cut. So the rowan is not merely protective; it stands at a threshold. That makes the word Gate especially apt alongside it.

In Irish mythic storytelling, rowan trees and berries can carry even greater powers. Rowan also appears in material connected with the Fianna and in traditions surrounding Bruidhean Chaorthainn, the “Hostel/Hall of the Rowan”, showing that the tree had a place in the wider heroic and narrative tradition.

In literature and oral poetry, the rowan also functions beautifully as a landscape image. It appears naturally in Irish-language song and verse as part of the remembered countryside. Something under which people meet, shelter, love, remember or tell stories. The rowan belongs to memory, place and storytelling.

For Rowan Gate Press, then, the symbolism can be read very neatly: Rowan speaks to protection, wisdom, resilience, imagination, memory and Irish cultural rootedness and Gate to passage, opportunity, entry, transition and opening a way forward.

Rowan Gate Press. Books to Inspire. A new chapter for ShadowScript. And, we hope, the beginning of many more.

References 
[1]: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/5162105/5154773/5200513... "Old Customs and Beliefs · Enfield · The Schools' Collection | dúchas.ie"
[2]: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4493632/4405671/4515841... "Na Crainn Choitianta atá ag Fás anseo · Más an Easa (B.) · The Schools' Collection | dúchas.ie"
[3]: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4493792/4420995/4536885... "Superstitions - Trees · Swanzy Memorial N. S. · The Schools' Collection | dúchas.ie"
[4]: https://sacred-texts.com/.../the-story-of-the-fairy-rowan... "The Story of the Fairy… – The King… | Internet Sacred Text Archive"
[5]: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4922027/4919830/4948243... "The Tale of the Bruíon Caorthainn · Shountrade, Adare · The Schools' Collection | dúchas.ie"
[6]: https://www.duchas.ie/en/cbes/4427785/4344053/4456691... "Amhrán · Sáile · The Schools' Collection | dúchas.ie"