ALL FIRED UP FOR ST BRIGID’S DAY..
Ireland’s ’matron saint’ honoured with festival
TODAY is St Brigid’s Day – the feast day of Ireland’s patron saint.
We’ve been celebrating her for centuries, with February 1 marked as one of the most important days in the calendars of our ancestors.
It was called Imbolc; one of four “quarter days” that marked the transition from one season to the next.
Now, she is the matron saint of Ireland with a bank holiday in her honour and a festival celebrated all around the world.
Ireland has three patron saints – St Patrick, St Colmcille and St Brigid. As our only female patron saint, the weekend of her feast day is a festival of women’s empowerment and Brigid, herself a feminist heroine.
She’s now both an ancient legend and a modern icon. But who is St Brigid? And how do we traditionally celebrate her feast day in Ireland?
Long before Christianity, the 5th Century Brigid, of Kildare, was a pan-european Celtic goddess.
She was born in Dundalk, Co Louth, and went on to become an abbess, founding a monastic community in Kildare and later dying there in 525.
Brigid was one of the original goddesses of the Tuatha de Danann, the daughter of the High King Dagda and mother Morrigan.
MIRACLES
She is a triple goddess – the goddess of healing symbolised by the element of water, goddess of the alchemical force of fire and goddess of poetry.
Legend has it she performed miracles, such as making the blind see and turning water into beer.
She is known as the Fiery Arrow, and is often depicted with flames coming out of her head, representing the primal feminine energy, mixed with masculine energy.
One story about her is how her father wanted to marry her off but, devoted to a life of religion, she pulled out one of her eyes to destroy her beauty. She
Ancient goddess, a woman of wisdom & our matron saint
IMELDA MAY ON THE NATURE OF BRIGID
co-founded an early Christian double monastery with monk Conleth in Kildare. Within a century
of her death, there was a thriving monastery of men and women there.
Her influence was felt down through the ages with traditions in her name – such as the St Brigid’s cross and the brideog dolls.
We have always paid tribute to her by making the St Brigid’s cross from rushes. Her emblem is said to protect homes from fire and hunger.
Special meals were enjoyed on February 1, such as colcannon, a mix of potatoes and cabbage.
And in some parts of Ireland, young women would make a brideog – “Little Brigid” – doll and a bed for her to lie in.
Actress Siobhan Mcsweeney and singer Imelda May are fans. Siobhan has said: “Brigid is a link between the very modern and an Ireland of the past that we recognise.
“I think Brigid speaks to us now in a way that perhaps she couldn’t and wasn’t allowed to in a time before.”
Singer Imelda said Brigid was “an ancient goddess, a woman of wisdom and our matron saint”.
Imelda added: “She was the protector of children, saviour of poor, symbol for smiths and worshipped by poets. Inspiring descendants past and to come, her creative flame fires eternal.”