Brigid of Kildare or Brigid of Ireland (; Classical Irish: Brighid; ; ) is the patroness saint (or 'mother saint') of Ireland, and one of its three national saints along with Patrick and Columba. According to medieval Irish hagiographies, she was an abbess who founded the important abbey of Kildare (Cill Dara), as well as several other convents of nuns. There is little historical evidence of her. Her hagiographies primarily focus on her miracles, and many stories about her have their basis in Irish pagan folklore.Farmer, David. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Fifth Edition, Revised). Oxford University Press, 2011. pp.66–67, 467–470. They say Brigid was the daughter of an Irish clan chief and an enslaved Christian woman, and was fostered in a druid's household before becoming a consecrated virgin.Staff, "St. Brigid of Ireland", Catholic Online. She is patroness of many things, including poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, livestock, and dairy production. In her honour, a perpetual fire was kept burning at Kildare for centuries.
Some historians suggest that Brigid is a Christianisation of the Celtic goddess Brigid. The saint's feast day is 1 February, and traditionally it involves weaving Brigid's crosses and many other folk customs. It was originally a festival called Imbolc, marking the beginning of spring. Since 2023, it has been a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland. This feast day is shared by Dar Lugdach, who tradition says was her student, close companion, and successor.
Name The saint has the same name as the goddess Brigid, derived from the Proto-Celtic , "high, exalted", and ultimately originating with Proto-Indo-European . In Old Irish, her name was spelled and pronounced . In Modern Irish she is also called . In Welsh, she is called (sometimes lenited to ), such as in several places called Llansanffraid, "St. Brigit's church". She is also referred to as "the Mary of the Gael",Woods, R. J., Christian Spirituality: God's Presence Through the Ages (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2006), p. 123. "the Mary of Ireland" and the "Mother Saint of Ireland". A less common name is "Brigid of Faughart", after her traditional birthplace.
Historicity There is debate over whether Brigid was a real person. According to The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, there are few historical facts about her – the early hagiographies "are mainly anecdotes and miracle stories, some of which are deeply rooted in Irish pagan folklore". There are many supernatural events and folk customs associated with her.Monaghan, P., The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2004), pp. 59–60. She has the same name as the Celtic goddess Brigid. Like the saint, the goddess in Irish myth is associated with poetry, healing, protection, smithcraft, and domestic animals, according to Sanas Cormaic and Lebor Gabála Érenn.Ó hÓgáin, Dáithí. Myth, Legend & Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition. Prentice-Hall Press, 1991. pp. 60–61. Furthermore, the saint's feast day falls on the Gaelic traditional festival of Imbolc. Some scholars suggest that the saint was not a real person but was a Christianisation of the goddess; others suggest that she was a real person and that traits of the goddess were transferred to her. Medieval art historian Pamela Berger argues that Christian monks "took the ancient figure of the mother goddess and grafted her name and functions onto her Christian counterpart". Dáithí Ó hÓgáin and others suggest that the saint had been chief druidess at the temple of the goddess Brigid, was responsible for converting it into a Christian monastery, and that the name and characteristics of the goddess later became attached to her.Wright, Brian. Brigid: Goddess, Druidess and Saint. The History Press, 2011. pp. 36–37.Lentz, R., & Gateley, E., Christ in the Margins (Ossining, NY: Orbis Books, 2003), p. 121.
Life
Sources The earliest accounts of St Brigid are two Old Irish hymns from the 7th century; the first by St Ultan of Ardbraccan (died ), Brigit Bé Bithmaith ('Brigid ever-excellent woman') also known as "Ultan's hymn",Howlett, D., "The Old-Irish Hymn 'Brigit Bé Bithmaith'", Peritia, 2011–2012, pp. 22–23, pp. 182–187; cf. "The Hymn in Praise of Saint Brigid by Saint Ultan". and the second is "Broccán's hymn", composed by St Broccán Clóen (died ) at the request of Ultan who was his tutor.Ancient Irish hymn of St. Brogan-Cloen in praise of St. Brigid, Irish Ecclesiastical Record vol 4, February 1868, p. 221-237; Whitley Stokes, Goidelica: Old and Early-middle-Irish Glosses, Prose and Verse, 1872, p. 137-146 (see p. 133-137 for Ultan's hymn); cf. https://www.vanhamel.nl/codecs/N%C3%AD_car_Brigit, https://www.vanhamel.nl/codecs/Preface_to_Broccán%27s_hymn and https://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2012/02/the-hymn-in-praise-of-saint-brigid-of.html "Ultan's hymn" begins:
Two early Lives of St Brigid in Hiberno-Latin prose, the Vita Sanctae Brigitae I and II, were written in the 7th–8th centuries, the first one possibly by St Aleran (died in 665), lector of Clonard, the second by Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare.See https://www.vanhamel.nl/codecs/Vita_prima_sanctae_Brigitae and https://www.vanhamel.nl/codecs/Vita_sanctae_Brigitae_(Cogitosus); the priority of one or the other Life is disputed; an earlier, lost, Life, has also been postulated, cf. https://www.vanhamel.nl/codecs/Vita_sanctae_Brigitae_(lost). A vellum fragment inscribed with her name has been dated to c.700 AD. An Old Irish prose Life, Bethu Brigte, was composed in the 9th century. Several later Latin and Irish Lives of the saint were composed. The Vita III, in hexameter verse, is sometimes attributed to St Coelan of Inishcaltra of the 7th–8th centuries,https://www.omniumsanctorumhiberniae.com/2013/07/saint-coelan-of-inis-cealtra-july-29.html; see Ludwig Bieler, "Recent Research on Irish Hagiography", Studies, vol. 35, 1946, p. 537. but appears more likely to have been written by St Donatus, an Irish monk who became Bishop of Fiesole in 824.http://sip.mirabileweb.it/title/vita-sanctae-brigidae-91-vita-metrica91-(has-ego-d-title/24614 and https://triasthaumaturga.blogspot.com/2012/02/a-commentary-on-life-of-saint-brigid-by.html; see D. N. Kissane, Uita metrica sanctae Brigidae: a critical edition with introduction, commentary and indexes, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy vol. 77, 1977, p. 57-192. In Donatus' prologue, it refers to the earlier Lives by Ultan (see before for his hymn), Aleran (see "Vita I") and an Anonymus. A 34-hexameter Latin poem about Saint Brigid had previously been composed by the Irish Roman cleric Colman .
Discussion on dates for the annals and the accuracy of dates relating to St Brigid continues.See A. P. Smyth, "The earliest Irish Annals: their first contemporary entries and the earliest centres of recording", Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy lxxii C (1972), pp 1–48 Daniel McCarthy: The chronology of St. Brigit of Kildare, in Peritia, xiv (2000), pp 255–81.
Early life Because of the legendary quality of the earliest accounts of her life, there is debate among many secular scholars and Christians as to the truthfulness of her biographies.
Her year of birth is usually given as 451 or 452 AD. One tradition is that Brigid was born at Faughart (just north of Dundalk), in Conaille Muirtheimne, part of the Kingdom of Ulaid. Another tradition is that she was born at Ummeras, near Kildare. All early sources say she was one of the Fothairt, a people mainly based in Leinster. Three biographies name her mother as Broicsech, a slave who had been baptised by Saint Patrick. They name her father as Dubhthach, a chieftain of Leinster.
The Vitae says that Dubhthach's wife forced him to sell Brigid's mother to a druid when she became pregnant. This might have been inspired by the Biblical story of Abraham and Hagar. An 8th-century account calls the druid Maithghean. It says Broicsech gave birth to Brigid at dawn, on the threshold, while bringing milk into the druid's house. This liminality seems to be a vestige of druidic lore. Brigid was thus born into slavery. Legends of her early holiness include her vomiting when the druid tried to feed her, due to his impurity; a white cow with red ears arrives to sustain her instead. Brigid's druid stepfather is portrayed somewhat sympathetically in the stories. He can see that Brigid is special; he is concerned for Brigid's welfare, and he eventually frees her and her mother.
Cogitosus said she spent her youth as a farm worker, churning butter, shepherding the flocks and tending the harvest.
As she grew older, Brigid was said to have worked miracles, including healing and feeding the poor. According to one tale, as a child, she once gave away her mother's entire store of butter. The butter was then replenished in answer to Brigid's prayers. Around the age of ten, she was returned as a household servant to her father, where her charity led her to donate his belongings to the poor.
In both of the earliest biographies, Dubhthach is so annoyed with Brigid that he took her in a chariot to the King of Leinster to sell her. While Dubhthach was talking to the king, Brigid gave away her father's bejewelled sword to a beggar to barter it for food to feed his family. The king recognised her holiness and convinced Dubhthach to grant his daughter freedom.
Religious life
It is said that Brigid was "veiled" or became a consecrated virgin either through Mac Caille, Bishop of Cruachán Brí Éile, or by St Mél of Ardagh at Mág Tulach (the present barony of Fartullagh, County Westmeath), who gave her the powers of an abbess.
According to tradition, around 480 Brigid founded a monastery at Kildare (Cill Dara, "church of the oak").
Brigid, with an initial group of seven companions, is credited with organising communal consecrated religious life for women in Ireland. She founded two monasteries; one for men, the other for women. Brigid became the first Abbess of Kildare and invited Conleth (Conláed), a hermit from Connell, to help her; he became the first Bishop of Kildare. It has often been said that she gave canonical jurisdiction to Conleth, but Archbishop Healy says that she simply "selected the person to whom the Church gave this jurisdiction", and her biographer says that she chose Conleth "to govern the church along with herself". For centuries, Kildare was ruled by a double line of abbot-bishops and abbess-bishops,"Multiple medieval sources insist she was ordained as a bishop, a status that her successors as abbess of Kildare shared until Ireland’s ecclesiastical hierarchy was drastically revised in 1152." Callan M. “The Safest City of Refuge”: Brigid the Bishop. In: Sacred Sisters: Gender, Sanctity, and Power in Medieval Ireland. Amsterdam University Press; 2019, p. 85. the Abbess of Kildare being regarded as superior general of the monasteries in Ireland. Her successors have always been accorded episcopal honour. Brigid's oratory at Kildare became a centre of religion and learning, and developed into a cathedral city.
Brigid is credited with founding a school of art, including metalwork and illumination, which Conleth oversaw. The Kildare scriptorium made the Book of Kildare, which drew high praise from Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis), but disappeared during the Reformation. According to Giraldus, nothing that he ever saw was at all comparable to the book, every page of which was gorgeously illuminated, and the interlaced work and the harmony of the colours left the impression that "all this is the work of angelic, and not human skill".