Brigid of Ireland

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Saint Brigid (Bridget) of Ireland
Image:Stbrigid.jpg
Virgin, abbess, inspirer
Born 451
Died 525
Venerated by Roman Catholics
Feast February 1
Attributes Virgin, abbess, founder
Patron saint of Babies, blacksmiths, illegitimate children, dairy workers, chicken farms, Ireland, midwives, travellers, sailors, scholars, nuns

Saint Brigid of Ireland (Bridget, Bridgit, Brigit; in English St. Bride) (451- 525) was born at Faughart near Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland. According to her hagiography, her parents were Dubhthach, pagan king of Leinster, and Brocca, a Christian Pictish slave who had been baptized by Saint Patrick.

Brigid bore the name of one of the most powerful goddesses of the pagan religion that Dubhthach practised. Brigid was the goddess of fire, whose manifestations were song, craftsmanship, and poetry, which the Irish considered the flame of knowledge. Brigid supposedly became a virgin in service to the Goddess Brigid and eventually ascended to high priestess at the Cill Dara ("Kildare", the temple of the oak), a pagan sanctuary built from the wood of the tree sacred to the Druids. In 468, she converted to Christianity and she followed St. Mel of Armagh to Meath.

Contents

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Life Stories

Because of the legendary quality of the earliest accounts of Saint Brigid, there is debate among many scholars and even faithful Christians as to the literal historicity of her life. Some insist that Brigid the goddess was made a saint simply to convert Celtic pagans to Christianity, although most historians say that she at least was a real person whose life was somewhat embellished or confused with the Goddess. Others point to the relic of her head, which Portuguese pilgrims took from her shrine at Downpatrick and brought back to their homeland some time in the 15th Century; the relic now resides in a chapel consecrated to its veneration at Lumier.

A later vita states that upon reaching maturity, she vexed her father by being overly generous to the poor and needy with his milk, butter, and flour. Finally, she gave away his jewel-encrusted sword to a leper. At this point, it was decided that her disposition was best suited for a nun and she was sent to a convent. The legend does not preserve when or how her hitherto pagan father became amenable to such acts. Other tales likewise exist, and the only agreement between the various stories is that a girl was born to an Irish king named Dubhtach and that her name was Brigid.

Around 470 she founded a Christian double monastery, of nuns and monks, at Kildare (Cill-Dara). Either she converted the pagan sanctuary of Cill Dara or built on unused ground nearby, depending upon the particular story consulted. She founded the scriptorium at the monastery where the famous illuminated manuscript the Book of Kildare was created. She died at Kildare on February 1 and is buried at Downpatrick with St. Columcille and St. Patrick, with whom she is co-patron of Ireland.

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Symbology and Legends

Similar to the association between St. Patrick and the shamrock, a tiny cross made of rushes was linked with St. Brigid. Legend has it she made the cross from rushes she found on the ground beside a dying man in order to convert him. Some houses in Ireland have a Brigid's Cross, it is a commonly believed by some that a Brigid's Cross protects the house from fire. A new cross is made each St Brigid's Day, February 1, and the old one is then burned to keep the fire from the house.

Legend has it that, when she was consecrated to the rank of Abbess, St. Mel was elderly and inadvertently read the consecration for a Bishop and that this could not be rescinded, under any circumstances. While the ordination would have been considered illegitimate, it would still be considered valid (in the technical sense of the terms used by the Roman Catholic Church). What is more likely is that a unique administrative status was conferred upon the Abbess of Kildare, since, while there is no record of St. Brigid acting in the liturgical capacity of a bishop, she and her successor Abbesses at Kildare had administrative authority equal to that of a Bishop until the Synod of Kells in 1152.

St. Brigid's feast day is February 1. Many Irish schools, including the High School in Armagh, are called after St. Brigid.

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Extended Biography

St. Brigid was born in 451 or 452 of princely ancestors at Faughart, near Dundalk, County Louth; d. 1 February, 525, at Kildare. Refusing many offers of marriage, she became a nun and received the veil from St. Macaille. She settled for a time with seven other virgins at the foot of Croghan Hill, but eventually went to Druin Criadh, in the plains of Magh Life, where under a large oak tree she erected her Convent of Cill-Dara, that is, "the church of the oak" (now Kildare), in the present county of that name.

It is difficult to reconcile the statements of St. Brigid's biographers, but the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Lives of the saint are at one in assigning her a slave mother in the court of her father Dubhthach, a chieftain of Leinster. Probably the most ancient life of St. Brigid is that by St. Broccan Cloen, who is said to have died 17 September, 650. It is metrical, as may be seen from the following specimen:

Ni bu Sanct Brigid suanach
Ni bu huarach im sheire Dé,
Sech ni chiuir ni cossens
Ind nóeb dibad bethath che.
(Saint Brigid was not given to sleep,
Nor was she intermittent about God's love;
Not merely that she did not buy, she did not seek for
The wealth of this world below, the holy one.)

Cogitosus's "Life of Brigid", or the "Second Life", dating from the closing years of the eighth century, is now in the Dominican friary at Eichstatt in Bavaria. In it he expounded the metrical life of St. Brigid, and versified it in Latin.

Although St. Brigid was "veiled" or received by St. Macaille, at Croghan, it is tolerably certain that she was professed by St. Mel of Ardagh, who also conferred on her abbatial powers. She followed St. Mel into the country of Teffia which is made up of sections of modern Meath, Westmeath and Longford. This occurred about the year 468.

St. Brigid's small oratory at Cill- Dara became the centre of religion and learning, and developed into a cathedral city. She founded two monastic institutions, one for men, and the other for women, and appointed St. Conleth as spiritual pastor of them. It has been frequently stated that she gave canonical jurisdiction to St. Conleth, Bishop of Kildare, but, as Archbishop Healy points out, she simply "selected the person to whom the Church gave this jurisdiction", and her biographer tells us distinctly that she chose St. Conleth "to govern the church along with herself". Thus, for centuries, Kildare was ruled by a double line of abbot-bishops and of abbesses, the Abbess of Kildare being regarded as superioress general of the convents in Ireland.

Not alone was St. Bridget a patroness of students, but she also founded a school of art, including metal work and illumination, over which St. Conleth presided. From the Kildare scriptorium came the wondrous book of the Gospels, which elicited unbounded praise from Giraldus Cambrensis, but which has disappeared since the Reformation. According to this twelfth- century ecclesiastic, nothing that he had ever seen was at all comparable to the Book of Kildare, every page of which was gorgeously illuminated, and he concludes by saying that the interlaced work and the harmony of the colours left the impression that "all this is the work of angelic, and not human skill".

Even allowing for the exaggerated stories told of St. Brigid by her numerous biographers, it is certain that she ranks as one of the most remarkable Irishwomen of the fifth century and as the Patroness of Ireland. She is lovingly called the "Queen of the South: the Mary of the Gael" by a writer in the "Leabhar Breac". St. Brigid died leaving a cathedral city and school that became famous all over Europe. In her honour St. Ultan wrote a hymn commencing:

Christus in nostra insula
Que vocatur Hivernia
Ostensus est hominibus
Maximis mirabilibus
Que perfecit per felicem
Celestis vite virginem
Precellentem pro merito
Magno in numdi circulo.
(In our island of Hibernia Christ was made known to man by the very great miracles which he performed through the happy virgin of celestial life, famous for her merits through the whole world.)

The sixth life of the saint printed by Colgan is attributed to Coelan, an Irish monk of the eighth century, and it derives a peculiar importance from the fact that it is prefaced by St. Donatus, also an Irish monk, who became Bishop of Fiesole in 824. St. Donatus refers to previous lives by St. Ultan and St. Aileran. When dying, St. Brigid was attended by St. Ninnidh, who was ever afterwards known as "Ninnidh of the Clean Hand" because he had his right hand encased with a metal covering to prevent its ever being defiled, after being the medium of administering the viaticum to Ireland's Patroness.

St. Brigid was interred at the right of the high altar of Kildare Cathedral, and a costly tomb was erected over her. Over the years her shrine became an object of veneration for pilgrims, especially on her feast day, 1 February. About the year 878, owing to the Scandinavian raids, the relics of St. Brigid were taken to Downpatrick, where they were interred in the tomb of St. Patrick and St. Columba. The relics of the three saints were discovered in 1185, and on 9 June of the following year were reinterred in Downpatrick Cathedral.

Various Continental breviaries of the pre-Reformation period commemorate St. Brigid, and her name is included in a litany in the Stowe Missal. In Ireland today, after 1500 years, "Mary of the Gael" remains a popular saint, and Brigid remains a common female Christian name. Moreover, hundreds of place-names in her honour are to be found all over the country, e.g. Kilbride, Brideswell, Tubberbride, Templebride, etc. The hand of St. Brigid is preserved at Lumiar near Lisbon, Portugal, since 1587, and another relic is at St. Martin's Cologne.

As to the historical St. Brigid, it seems that Faughart was the scene of her birth. Faughart Church was founded by St. Morienna in honour of St. Brigid. The old well of St. Brigid's adjoining the ruined church still attracts pilgrims. There is evidence in the "Trias Thaumaturga" to St. Brigid's stay in Connacht, especially in Co. Roscommon and also in the many churches founded by her in the Diocese of Elphim. Her friendship with St. Patrick is attested by the following paragraph from the Book of Armagh: "inter sanctum Patricium Brigitanque Hibernesium columpnas amicitia caritatis inerat tanta, ut unum cor consiliumque haberent unum. Christus per illum illamque virtutes multas peregit". (Between St. Patrick and St. Brigid, the columns of the Irish, there was so great a friendship of charity that they had but one heart and one mind. Through him and through her Christ performed many miracles.) At Armagh there was a "Templum Brigidis"; namely the little abbey church known as "Regles Brigid", which contained some relics of the saint, destroyed in 1179, by William Fitz Aldelm.

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See also

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External links

cs:Svatá Brigita de:Brigida von Kildare fr:Brigitte d'Irlande li:Briej pl:Święta Brygida z Kildare ru:Бригитта Ирландская

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