Macha Yoga is a yoga studio in the heart of Bray, Co. Wicklow. Opened in October 2018, Macha Yoga offers a full range of classes, workshops and treatments in yoga, meditation and sound healing in a warm and relaxing atmosphere.
The studio was set up by Alice Vignoles, a local yoga teacher and her mother, Rose, to create a space in Bray that would provide a dedicated, intimate space for yoga and healing. Within no time at all, the studio developed to host a full schedule with many highly qualified and experienced teachers leading classes in hatha yoga, kundalini, flow, prenatal, mantra meditation, and yin yoga.
Our venue is within one of Bray’s historic Victorian terraces, Florence Terrace. Formerly a nursing home, Number 7 was renovated in 2007. The long garden to the front and south facing windows in the studio make Macha Yoga bright and quiet all year round despite our central location in the town.
The Name
Macha Yoga is named after the Celtic Goddess Macha. Macha, also known as Grian Banchure (the Sun of Womenfolk), represents strong female leadership, land and childbirth. She is also associated sovereignty, horses and war. She is the mother aspect of the Morrigan triple Goddess.
In one of the most popular stories about Macha, she took the form of a mysterious maiden who came to live with and marry a widowed farmer on the condition that he must never tell anyone about her gifts. Macha brought great fortune to the farmer as her power allowed her to turn her hand to anything and excel, bring life to crops and livestock and abundance to the home.
At a festival, the farmer boasted with pride that his wife could outrun the king’s horses and the king demanded Macha be brought out and prove his claim on penalty of death. Macha, heavily pregnant runs the race to save the farmer but dies in childbirth brought on by the race, making a curse that the men of Ulster fall the same way she did on the battle field. Macha’s curse comes true at the Táin Bó Cúailnge, leaving only Cu Chulainn left to fight.
