Today, on a sunny morning with a blue sky over Dublin, we celebrate Lá Féile Bríde– St Brigid’s day – traditionally, the first day of spring in Ireland. The Celtic calendarstressed four seasonalhinges: Imbolc [St Brigid’s], Bealtaine [May Eve], St Johnsday [I June], and Samhain [Halloween]. All were liminal moments, when the greatcycle of the seasons turned, as we pass thethreshold between Winter and Summerhalves of the years.
St Brigid’s day is when we Irish begin the welcome turn from thewinter to the spring half of our year. After the dark dreary days of deep winter innorthern Europe, we greet the first signs of areturning light, energy and growth: thesnowdrop and the crocus, spangle Stephens Green, the daffodils begin to sprout,marking the transition from grey to green. And everyone repeats the age old cliche’‘sure there’s a great stretch in the evening.' Brigid incorporates aspects of an earlier Celtic Goddess of fecundicity, embedded inthe Irish landscape. She entered powerfully into the Gaelic tradition, as one of thethree great saints –Patrick, Brigid and Colm Cille.
We Irish believe that Christ willbe flanked by our three great advocates on the day of judgement.Her cross is made with the humblest of materials – the worthlessgreen rush which lurks in wet ground and bogs. It is a reminder that the simplest thing – what can be humbler than a rush – can be transformed by imagination and creativityinto a powerful symbol.
Her generosity is stressed in the hagiography. There is a lovely passage in Bethu Brigte – an early life ofBrigid–where a group of 20 women are traveling the road as migrants. That wasdangerous in early medieval Ireland–vulnerable women especially risked beingenslaved, and passing from Wexford to Kilkenny, or Mayo to Galway, or Meath toCavan was a risky business. Brigid extends her protection to them all the more sowhen she discovers a disabled brother and a blind sister in carts with thegroup.
We should remind ourselves of this in our contemporaryworld which regards migrantsas threatening and problematic. Remember too that our other great Saint was a slave in Ireland and that Colmcille exiled himself to Scotland.Brigid also is an early environmentalist. She is associated with a white cow and sheis a lover of the little birds. Linnets are called Brigid’s birds and the oystercatcher,that haunter of the seashore with the plaintive call, was called Giolla Bríde– theservant of Brigid. The dawn chorus now ratchets up many notches, as the birds chosea mate and start their nests.
The countryside is home to hundreds of St Brigid’s wells, including two in my homeparish of Clonegal. Clear transformative cleansing water was a pre-eminent Christiansign, and also areminder of stewardship of the earth. Violators of natural resourceswere anathema in the Celtic tradition. Brigid is considered as a protector of the life,so her cross was always placed over the cowhouse, guaranteeing thehealth and safety of the animal. In the dwelling house, the cross protected fromillness, fire and lightning.On this day, the Irish believed that the saint herself traveled the land and she waswelcomed by setting a meal to which the first traveling poor person was invited–anearly harbinger of the warm Irish welcome.
Brigid is particularly associated with the Curragh in County Kildare, whichcommemorates a famous miracle about her cloak, the Brat Bríde. Brigid asked theKing of Leinster for land for a convent. The scornful King told her that she could onlyhave as much land as her cloak would cover. Brigid spread her cloak on the ground, itmagically enlarged, covering all the land which is now The Curragh. In theIrishtradition, her cloak was remembered on her feast day by a ribbon. This was leftout on that night and it was believed to be blessed by Brigid as she passed by.Poignantly, the Brat Bríde was often carried by emigrants to the USA. Indeed,Brigid became the most common girl’s name in Ireland: In the parish of Mullinahonein south Tipperary, one-third of the women in the 1901 census were called Brigid.Indeed so endemic was the name that the term ‘Biddie’ became a generic name forIrish servant girls in America.As the sun climbs higher in our sky, the days lengthen, the heart lifts: ‘Sursumcordae.'
This story was originally written by Kevin Whelan, director of the Dublin Global Gateway.
