A St. Brigid’s Day reflection
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 calendar stressed four seasonal hinges: Imbolc [St Brigid’s], Bealtaine [May Eve], St Johns day [I June], and Samhain [Halloween]. All were liminal moments, when the great cycle of the seasons turned, as we pass the threshold between Winter and Summer halves of the years.
St Brigid’s day is when we Irish begin the welcome turn from the winter to the spring half of our year. After the dark dreary days of deep winter in northern Europe, we greet the first signs of a returning light, energy and growth: the snowdrop 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 in the Irish landscape. She entered powerfully into the Gaelic tradition, as one of the three great saints – Patrick, Brigid and Colm Cille.
We Irish believe that Christ will be flanked by our three great advocates on the day of judgement. Her cross is made with the humblest of materials – the worthless green 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 creativity into a powerful symbol.
Her generosity is stressed in the hagiography. There is a lovely passage in Bethu Brigte – an early life of Brigid – where a group of 20 women are traveling the road as migrants. That was dangerous in early medieval Ireland – vulnerable women especially risked being enslaved, and passing from Wexford to Kilkenny, or Mayo to Galway, or Meath to Cavan was a risky business. Brigid extends her protection to them all the more so when she discovers a disabled brother and a blind sister in carts with the group.
We should remind ourselves of this in our contemporary world which regards migrants as 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 she is 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 – the servant of Brigid. The dawn chorus now ratchets up many notches, as the birds chose a mate and start their nests.
The countryside is home to hundreds of St Brigid’s wells, including two in my home parish of Clonegal. Clear transformative cleansing water was a pre-eminent Christian sign, and also a reminder of stewardship of the earth. Violators of natural resources were anathema in the Celtic tradition. Brigid is considered as a protector of the life, so her cross was always placed over the cow house, guaranteeing the health and safety of the animal. In the dwelling house, the cross protected from illness, fire and lightning. On this day, the Irish believed that the saint herself traveled the land and she was welcomed by setting a meal to which the first traveling poor person was invited – an early harbinger of the warm Irish welcome.
Brigid is particularly associated with the Curragh in County Kildare, which commemorates a famous miracle about her cloak, the Brat Bríde. Brigid asked the King of Leinster for land for a convent. The scornful King told her that she could only have as much land as her cloak would cover. Brigid spread her cloak on the ground, it magically enlarged, covering all the land which is now The Curragh. In the Irish tradition, her cloak was remembered on her feast day by a ribbon. This was left out 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 Mullinahone in 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 for Irish servant girls in America. As the sun climbs higher in our sky, the days lengthen, the heart lifts: ‘Sursum cordae.'
This story was originally written by Kevin Whelan, director of the Dublin Global Gateway.