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A Reflection on St Brigid
By St Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare
St Brigid of Kildare lived from 450–524 AD and is one of the great triad of Irish saints, alongside St Patrick and St Columba/Colmcille. The trio are celebrated as the key figures who spread Christianity throughout Ireland in the fifth and sixth centuries. The remains of all three are said to be buried together at Down Cathedral in Downpatrick, Co Down.
St Brigid’s Day, 1st February, was designated by the Irish Government as a new public holiday from 2023 onwards, and 2024 was designated a special year of celebration marking the 1500th anniversary of her death.
Literature on St Brigid, such as Vita Sanctae Brigitae – The Life of St Brigid – written by Cogitosus approximately 150 years after her death, points towards a real, historical figure. Brigid’s father Dubthach was a pagan chieftain, and her mother Broicseach was a Scottish Christian slave in his household. Brigid herself was born into slavery.
When she was a child, she worked with her father’s cattle and in the dairy but often got into trouble for giving away milk and butter to the poor and needy. Once she gave away her mother’s store of butter to a hungry family, but legend has it that the butter was miraculously replenished.
On another occasion her father planned to sell her to Enna, King of Leinster. While they were negotiating inside the king’s palace, the young Brigid was left outside. When she saw that her father had left his expensive sword in his chariot, she gave it away to a poor man so he could sell it for food. Her father was so angry he brought Brigid straight to King Enna. The king’s response was to recognise ‘her merit in the eyes of God is greater than ours’. He then replaced Dubthach’s sword and set Brigid free.
These and many other stories show Brigid’s compassion for poor people. Hers was a practical faith. The Book of Lismore, written around 1480 AD, says that St Brigid was impelled, ‘to comfort the poor, to banish all distress, to relieve all wretchedness’.
Image: courtesy of Gareth Wray, Saint Brigid’s window, Saint Brigid’s Cathedral, Kildare.