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| Saint Brigid's Cross Traditionally made from rushes |
Today, 1st February, we celebrate the feast day of St Brigid of Ireland. Originally, this was a pagan festival called Imbolc which marked the beginning of spring.
Who was St Brigid?
St Brigid is one of the Patron
Saints of Ireland, together with St Patrick and St Colmcille. She was born in
Faughart, north of Dundalk, Co Louth in Ireland, approximately 450 AD and was
the founder of the first monastery in County Kildare. Her father was a pagan
chieftain of Leinster named Dubthach and her mother was a Christian slave named
Brocca.
Dubthach’s wife insisted that he
get rid of the slave girl. He sold Brigid’s mother to a poet but not the child
in her womb for whom he was responsible. Later, the poet sold Brigid’s mother
to a druid. As Brigid was filled with the Holy Spirit, she could not digest the
druid’s ‘unclean’ food and
‘thereupon he chose a white cow and set it aside for the girl, and a
certain Christian woman, a very God-fearing virgin, used to milk the cow and
the girl used to drink the cow’s milk and not vomit it up as her stomach had
been healed. Moreover, this Christian woman fostered the girl’.
When she was young, St Brigid
wanted to join a convent. However, her father insisted that she marry a rich
man to whom he had promised her hand. According to legend, Brigid prayed that
her beauty be taken so no one would want to marry her and her prayer was
granted. It was not until after she made her final vows that her beauty was
restored.
Brigid enlisted God’s help again
to convince her father to give her land on which to build a convent. Her father
agreed to give her as much land as her cloak could cover. It is said that the
cloak grew to cover 2,000 acres of land! One of five ancient roads in Ireland
that lead to Tara passed through Kildare.
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| Saint Brigid's Cathedral Kildare, Ireland |
According to tradition, around 480 AD Brigid founded a monastery at Kildare (Cill Dara: “church of the oak”), on the site of a pagan shrine to the Celtic goddess Brigit. Her monastery developed a reputation for hospitality, compassion and generosity. It was known as the ‘City of the Poor’. St Brigid worked with the sick, poor, and outcast.
As monastic communities grew,
they attracted a resident local community. The monasteries provided for the
spiritual needs of local families and taught the children. The monastery and
the village grew together. The monks undertook tasks such as the creating and
copying of literature and highly specialised metalware.
St Brigid’s Rush Cross
On one occasion, St Brigid was
sitting by the sick bed of a dying pagan chieftain comforting him with stories
of her faith in God. She told him the story of Christ on the cross while at the
same time picking up rushes from the ground to make a cross. Before he died,
the chieftain asked to be baptised. People made similar crosses to hang over the
door of their homes to scare off evil, fire and hunger. Word spread of St
Brigid’s kindness and faith and the making of the cross from rushes that we
know today became associated with her name.
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| Saint Brigid as depicted in Saint Non's Chapel, St Davids, Wales |
It was said that St Brigid could miraculously milk her cows three times a day to provide a meal for visitors. According to the Celtic tradition, the guest was seen as Christ and hospitality was extended in that spirit.
Brigid later founded a school of
art that included metalwork and illumination. It was at this school that the
Book of Kildare, which Gerald of Wales praised as "the work of angelic,
and not human skill," was beautifully illuminated. Sadly, this book was
lost three centuries ago.
We can also see the merging of pagan and Christian art as Christianity
gradually replaced paganism. For example, two of the grave slabs at
Carrowntemple, Co. Sligo, bear art of the Early Christian period that is
derived from the Celtic art of the preceding Pagan Iron Age. One of these is remarkably
close to a design in the Book of Durrow and is datable to c. 650 AD.
The Celts worshipped hundreds of gods and goddesses. In some respects,
the nature of the Celtic religion helped in the development of Christianity.
Their belief in the indestructibility of the souls of the dead helped in
understanding the resurrection of Christ. The Celts also had their own
sacrifices and ritual meals which, in a sense, mirrored aspects of Christian
message.
Brigid’s enduring
legacy
St Brigid still lives on 1,500
years later in the minds and hearts of the people of Ireland. Her monastery
grew and grew and people from all over Ireland came here, many of whom joined
the monastery. St Patrick and St Brigid paved the way for Christianity in
Ireland and later to Europe.
Hundreds of holy wells are
dedicated to St Brigid in Ireland. Early Irish texts suggest that holy wells
may have remained associated with non-Christian rituals and were even protected
by the old religion. For example, it is believed that wells were used instead
of baptisteries in Ireland, which may explain the large number of holy wells
throughout the country.
More places names in Ireland are
named after St Brigid than St Patrick himself. St Brigid is associated with
fertility on the land. Straw doll-like effigies of St Brigid known as Breedeag
were used to bless homes.
St Brigid’s relevance
today.
St Brigid appreciated the
importance of the land, nature and the seasons. At a time when our planet is
threatened by global warming and climate change, Brigid reminds us of the need
to confront these challenges now. Today, we can learn from her example of
compassion, kindness, generosity, and hospitality, as the World deals with the
consequences of poverty, war, population displacement and the current Covid-19
pandemic.
On February 1st, 525,
St Brigid died of natural causes. Her body was initially kept to the right of
the high altar of Kildare Cathedral. In 1185, John de Courcy had her remains
relocated in Down Cathedral. Today, Saint Brigid's skull can be found in the
Church of St. John the Baptist in Lumiar, Portugal. The tomb in which it is
kept bears the inscription,
"Here in these three tombs lie the three Irish knights who brought
the head of St. Brigid, Virgin, a native of Ireland, whose relic is preserved
in this chapel. In memory of which, the officials of the Altar of the same
Saint caused this to be done in January AD 1283."
In 1905 Sister Mary Agnes of the
Dundalk Convent of Mercy took a purported fragment of the skull to St Bridget's
Church in Kilcurry. In 1928, Fathers Timothy Traynor and James McCarroll
requested another fragment for St Brigid's Church in Killester, a request
granted by the Bishop of Lisbon, António Mendes Belo.
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