About us

Neon Ireland was founded by Mareike Bartel and Rachel Connolly in 2026.

Mareike Bartel is a licensed occupational therapist with over 20 years of experience working with neurodivergent children and their families. Specialising in sensory integration, Mareike has built a deep and nuanced understanding of how neurodivergent children experience the world — and what they need to feel safe, regulated, and ready to thrive.

Her passion for this work is both professional and personal. As a mother of three little ones who keep her wonderfully busy at home, Mareike brings a lived understanding of family life to everything she does. She knows first-hand the joys, the challenges, and the importance of having the right support around you.

Alongside her clinical expertise, Mareike is an accomplished entrepreneur who has successfully built and run her own occupational therapy practice for many years. Through that practice, she has cultivated a wonderful community of neurodiversity-affirming practitioners — a network of like-minded professionals united by a shared belief that neurodivergent children and families deserve better. It is this community that she brings with her to NEON Ireland, helping to lay the foundations of the connected, informed, and compassionate support network the charity aims to build.

Mareike brings that same drive, dedication, and vision to her role as co-founder of NEON Ireland — a charity she hopes will give neurodivergent children and their families the understanding and opportunities they deserve.

Rachel Connolly is a Montessori-trained teacher with over 18 years of experience working with children up to 12 years of age. Her deep commitment to child-led, nurturing education has shaped her practice throughout her career — and inspired her to write and publish a curriculum planning book that is now used by educators across Ireland.

But Rachel’s journey to co-founding NEON Ireland is also a deeply personal one. As a mother of three wonderful, busy little ones, Rachel knows first-hand what it means to navigate the world as a neurodivergent family. The lack of appropriate support and understanding she encountered along the way was not just frustrating — it was a turning point. Rather than accept a system that was failing families like hers, Rachel chose to do something about it.

That determination is at the heart of everything NEON Ireland stands for. Rachel brings with her not only years of educational expertise and a proven ability to shape how children learn, but also the empathy, resilience, and lived experience of a parent who has walked this road herself. She is building the school and the community she wished had existed — for her family, and for every family that comes after.