Who is the Actual Brigid of Kildare?

Celebrating Brigid @ 1500

     Fáilte! Welcome, Welcome, Welcome!

On February 1st, 2024, the world will be celebrating the 1500th anniversary of Saint Brigid of Kildare, Ireland. In 2023, The Republic of Ireland made the Monday nearest, Saint Brigid’s Feast on February 1st, a National Bank Holiday.

In honor of this amazing 1500th anniversary, I am beginning…

Karen’s Celtic Contemplations and Considerations!

Who is the Actual Brigid of Kildare? Brigid was a real woman as well as a symbol of feminine power. Both inside and outside the church, she accompanies many on spiritual journeys, not only in Celtic Lands but around the world! Brigid was an actual individual documented in a wide variety of early sources. The Saint was an influential person of her time and context. She was a remarkable woman of the early Irish Church and society. Whether of Celtic Ancestry or not, Brigid of Kildare is remembered as real in her time and still captivating the hearts and inspiring the lives of many in ours.

    Brigid of Kildare and several of her following abbesses, stand out as women like few others in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, as they are the only women recorded in the early Irish Annals. Her life is well documented in three primary biographic and hagiographic works as well as several references in annals, manuscripts, genealogies, and liturgical literature. The Saint was Abbess of a double monastic settlement in Kildare for both women and men, one of only three major monasteries in Ireland during her era. Although, Dr. Wycherley does not believe it was possible for a woman to be a bishop there are numerous people who believe she did attain Episcopal Status in other written works. Brigid of Kildare was an outstanding Abbess and Bishop who really existed.

   Surely, well connected, Brigid, who lived from about 451 to 524 CE, must have had a very assertive, charismatic, and compassionate personality. This woman was committed to exceptional generosity and hospitality with actualized kind-heartedness and extraordinary mediation skills. She managed to break through patriarchal and hierarchical barriers where women were legally classified as incompetent. Brigid astounded and challenged both ecclesial leaders and kings. Like other women of her time, she found female monasticism to be the only place where any political and social power could be achieved. Her monastery was known as The Heart of Ireland. This center of her groundbreaking movement began to captivate attention on the European Continent in the 700’s CE. As a mid-5^th and early 6^th Century special Irish woman, Abbess and Bishop Brigid of Kildare lavished her people beyond measure and continues to bless ours.

Saint Bishop Brigid of Kildare, pray with us!

SAVE The DATE: February 1st at 12 NOON LOCAL TIME. Pause for One Minute for Peace. You and your communities may wish to find ways to celebrate this pause for peace.
Link: From Solas Bhride in Kildare Ireland. Pause for Peace Event
https://solasbhride.ie/event/pause-for-peace/

Photo: The Brigid of Faughart Mural, in Dundalk, Ireland taken by Karen in July 2023.

“If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future,

we will have to sow the seeds of non-violence, here and now, in the present.”

(Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Irish Peace Nobel Laureate)

In Loving Memory of and encircled by my Four Irish Great-Grandmothers.

Beannachti’, Blessings,

Karen Kerrigan, ARCWP

Reference: Brigid 1500. The Real Brigid? Dr. Niamh Wycherley, University College, Dublin. Sponsored by The County Kildare, Ireland Federation. August 2023. (1 hour)