Brigid of Ireland (Brigit of Ireland, Bridget of Ireland, Bride of Ireland) (d. c.525), abbess of Kildare. Historical facts about her are extremely rare; some scholars have even doubted her existence altogether; her Lives, written from the 7th century, are mainly anecdotes and miracle stories, some of which are deeply rooted in Irish pagan folklore.
She is believed to have been born near Uinmeras about 5 miles from Kildare, of parents of humble origin, baptized by Patrick; to have become a nun at an early age; to have founded the monastery of Kildare and so contributed notably to the spread of Christianity. Her miracle stories portray her almost as a personification of compassion. Some emphasize the theme of multiplication of food: either of butter to the poor, or of changing her bath-water into beer to satisfy the thirst of unexpected clerical visitors. Even her cows gave milk three times the same day to enable some bishops to have enough to drink. Other legends make her a personification of the Blessed Virgin (‘Mary of the Gael’); this is based on a vision of bishop Ibor the night before an assembly addressed by Brigid. When she arrived she corresponded exactly to his vision of Mary. The same Ibor is said to have consecrated Brigid a bishop, but this seems impossible, and the preposterous claims that bishops and abbesses of Kildare were supreme over others in the whole of Ireland were a principal reason for the existence of early Lives, such as that by Cogitosus (c.650). This was written ignoring Armagh and Patrick. The later development of Kildare into an important double monastery, with shrines of Brigid and Conleth in the elaborately decorated wooden church, should not lead us to suppose that it was equally developed in Brigid's own lifetime.
But if there is much uncertainty about her life, there is none about the extension of her cult, especially in Ireland and in churches of Irish origin on the Continent, where it was second only to that of Patrick. Many manuscript copies were made of her Lives, translations were made into Old French, Middle English, and German. In England there were at least nineteen ancient church dedications in her honour (the most famous is St. Bride's, Fleet Street), and almost as many in Wales. The name of St. Bride's Bay, Dyfed, emphasizes the strong connection between Irish and Welsh Christianity, while several places in Wales are called Llansantaffraid (= St. Bride's Church). She is still venerated in Alsace, Flanders, and Portugal.
Brigid is patron of poets, blacksmiths, and healers. Her most usual iconographical attribute is a cow lying at her feet, which recalls her phase as a nun–cowgirl. An interesting relic of her shoe, made of silver and brass, set with jewels, survives in the National Museum at Dublin.
Folkloric elements have been important not only in her Lives, but also in her cult. Gerald of Wales (d. c.1220) described a fire kept burning continuously at her shrine for centuries, tended by the twenty nuns of her community. The fire was surrounded by a circle of bushes, which no man was allowed to enter. Such details, added to the facts that the name Brig, meaning valour or might, was personified as a goddess, whose fire-cult took place on 1 February, has led some critics to identify Brigid unconvincingly with this heathen goddess.
Principal feast: 1 February; translation, 10 June. Another feast on 24 March commemorated the discovery by Malachy in 1185 of the supposed bodies of Patrick, Columba, and Brigid at Downpatrick. This feast was kept in Ireland, but also some English centres such as Chester, while the principal feast was almost universal. Her tunic, supposedly given by Gunhilda, sister of King Harold II, survives at St. Donatian's, Bruges.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Feb. 1 (1658), 99–185; Latin Lives also in J. Colgan, Trias Thaumaturga (1647); Irish Lives in W. Stokes, The Book of Lismore (1890, with Eng. tr. and in C. Plummer, J. Fraser, and P. Grosjean, ‘Vita Brigitae’, Irish Texts, i (1931); also M. A. O'Brien, ‘The Old Irish Life of St. Brigid’, I.H.S., I (1938–9), 121–34, 343–53; M. Esposito, ‘On the Earliest Latin Life of St. Brigit of Kildare’, P.R.I.A., xxx (1912); J. Kenney, The Sources for the Early History of Ireland, i (1929), 356–63; F. O'Briain, ‘Brigitana’, Z.C.P., xxxvi. 112–37; ‘The Hagiography of Leinster’ in J. Ryan (ed.), Essays and Studies presented to Prof. Eoin MacNeill (1940); L. Gougaud, Les Saints irlandais hors d'Irlande (1937); R. Sharpe, ‘Vitae S. Brigitae: the Oldest Texts’, Peritia, i (1982), 81–106; K. McCone, ‘Brigid in the Seventh Century: a Saint with Three Lives’, ibid. 107–45; S. Connolly, ‘The Authorship and manuscript tradition of Vita I S. Brigitae’, Manuscripta, xvi (1972), 67–82. See also R. Sharpe, Medieval Irish Saints Lives (1991), pp. 15–19, 120–215
