Saint Brigid of Kildare

“ Amid the galaxy of the saints, how lustrous, how divinely fair, shines the star of Brigid, the shepherd maiden of Faughard, the disciple of Patrick the Apostle, the guardian of the holy light that burned beneath the oak-trees of Kildare! Over all Ireland and through the Hebridean Isles, she is renowned above any other. ”

“ It is very manifest that St. Brigid felt from the beginning that a monastery of men at Kildare, presided over by a bishop, would be a great means of protecting her own nunnery of tender virgins and widows. It was a lawless age, as the history of St. Enda shows, and hence Brigid wished for security, as well as for instruction and religious guidance, to have the bishop and his clergy near her. She was anxious to have a complete and self-sufficing religious city at Kildare, and such, in fact, it very soon became. Besides St. Conlaeth to rule and to ordain, she had another bishop, St. ”

“ Brighid is a woman’s name of pagan origin in Ireland; it has been explained fiery dart by the Irish glossographers, especially by Cormac, Archbishop of Cashel, who distinctly states in his glossary that it was the name of the Muse who was believed to preside over poetry in pagan times in Ireland. Brighid is now very common in Ireland as the name of a woman, in consequence of its being that of the most celebrated of the female saints of Ireland—the patroness of Kildare—who is well known all over Europe as the great patroness of Ireland. ”

“ From Armagh we not unnaturally turn to Kildare. If St. Patrick is the father, St. Brigid is the mother of all the saints of Erin, both monks and nuns. She may be regarded not only as the foundress of the monasteries and School of Kildare, but also, in one sense at least, of the diocese of Kildare itself. She has always been deemed one of the three great patron saints of Ireland. Her festival was honoured next after that of St. Patrick himself. The name has always been a favourite one with the daughters of Ireland. She was a woman not only of great virtues but of great talents ”

“ Kildare, as might be expected, became, during the life and after the death of Brigid, a great city and a great school—Cogitosus, with pardonable exaggeration, describes it as the head city of all the bishops, and calls Conlaeth and his successors Arch-bishops of the Bishops of Ireland, and Brigid [Pg 133] (and her successors) the Abbess, whom all the Abbesses of Ireland hold in veneration. He says that no one could count the crowds of people coming to Kildare from all the provinces of Erin; that some come for the feasting or food—ad epulas—that the sick come to be healed ”

“ In the eighth line Brigid is declared to be “Mariae sanctae similem,” an expression which may have given origin to the saying that Brigid was the “Mary of the Irish.” The following passage from the Leabhar Breac gives a glowing eulogy of St. Brigid, and formally calls her the “Mary of the Gaedhil.”
“There was not in the world one of more bashfulness and modesty than this holy virgin. She never washed (as was then not unfrequent,) her hands, or her feet, or head before men. She never looked a man in the face. She never spoke without blushing. ”

“ While the parent convent at Kildare continued to grow, branch houses under Brigit's Rule, and subject to her authority, were established all over [Pg 109] Ireland; and many establishments for monks were also founded in honour of her.
Brigit had such a reputation for wisdom and prudence, that the most eminent of the saints, and many kings and chiefs of her day, visited Kildare or corresponded with her, to obtain her advice in doubtful or difficult matters. Visitors were constantly coming and going, all of whom she received kindly and treated hospitably. ”

“ The renown of Bridget's unbounded charity drew multitudes of the poor and necessitous to Kildare; the fame of her piety attracted thither many persons of distinction also, who were anxious to solicit her prayers or to profit by her holy example. In course of time the number of these so much increased, (and what an additional proof does it not afford of the thirst for spiritual improvement indulged by our ancestors!) that it became necessary to provide accommodation for them in the neighborhood of the new monastery, and thus was laid the foundation and origin of the town of Kildare. ”

“ Not far from the convent, another establishment was founded, later on, for men, which afterwards became one of the great Colleges of Ireland. As the two communities and the population of the town continued to grow, it was Brigit's earnest [Pg 108] desire that a bishop should be there to take spiritual charge of the whole place. A holy man named Conleth, who had hitherto spent his life as a hermit in the neighbourhood, was appointed bishop by the heads of the Church. He was the first bishop of Kildare, and he took up his residence in the monastery. ”

“ It is, however, abundantly evident that Brigid was a woman of strong mind and of great talents, that she was admirably fitted to rule and to organize, that her influence was widely felt, and her wisdom and prudence held in the highest estimation by the greatest ecclesiastics of her time. Moreover, her great virtues were confirmed by many miracles, so that crowds of men and women came from all parts of the country either to make a pilgrimage, or place themselves permanently under her guidance. ”

“ Culdees appear at Abernethy in the reign of Edgar (1097-1107) , and they still held the old nunnery associated with S. Brigid in 1189-1198; and in 1272 the Culdees were changed into a priory of Augustinian monks. The famous Round Tower is assigned by Dr Petrie to 712-727, under Nectan III.; by Dr Skene to 865, the year of Kellach's visit; Dr Muir makes it later than Brechin, i.e., 950; while Mr Anderson makes it one or two decades later still. For our purpose here the most important fact relative to Abernethy is the original dedication to S. Brigid. She was Abbess of Kildare, and died Feb. ”

“ The sees of Ardagh, Clogher, Emly, and Elphin were founded during the life-time of St. Patrick, and fifteen others of lesser note before the close of the century. {830} The cathedral of Kildare, second only in extent and magnificence to that of Armagh, was built about the year 490, and belonged jointly to the diocesan and the nunnery of St. Brigid. It is described as having been divided by a partition beyond the sanctuary; the bishop and clergy entering the church by a door on the north, and the abbess and her community by a door on the south side. ”

“ This figure, it is probable, is intended to represent St Conlæth, the first bishop of Kildare, who was cotemporary with St Brigid, and said to have been the joint founder of that see. On each side of this figure is a shield, one of which bears the arms of France and England quarterly; the other, two keys in saltire, in chief a royal crown; a device which, it is worthy of remark, constitutes the arms anciently and still borne by the archbishops of York, and the appearance of which in this seal may therefore not be easy to account for. ”

“ There are many places of this name in Ireland, but this is supposed to be the one in the county Waterford. After a time, Brigid built herself a cell under a goodly oak, and added a church and other buildings for her nuns. This was Kildare, Kil Dara, the cell or chapel of the oak. There were already communities of men, and there were churches and Christian schools, but this was the first convent of women in Ireland. The dwellings of the nuns were probably a number of huts or cells close to the church. The church was divided into three parts, one for monks, one for nuns, and one for the people. ”

“ The two institutions—nuns and monks—planted by St. Brigit continued long to flourish side by side, and Kildare is the only religious establishment in Ireland, says Dr. Healy, which down to a comparatively recent period preserved the double line of succession, of abbot-bishops and of abbesses. The annalists always took care to record the names of the abbesses with the same accuracy as those of the abbots, and to the last the abbesses as successors of St. Brigit, were credited with, in public opinion, and probably enjoyed in fact, a certain supremacy over the bishops of Kildare themselves. ”

“ Brigit's small oratory at Kildare, under the shadow of her branching oak, soon grew into a great institution, and within her own lifetime two considerable religious establishments sprang up there, one for women and the other for men. She herself selected a bishop to assist her in governing them, and another to instruct herself and her nuns. Long before her death, which occurred about the year 525, a regular city and a great school rivalling the fame of Armagh itself, had risen round her oak-tree. Cogitosus, himself one of the Kildare monks, who wrote a Latin life of St. ”

“ Long before the maiden Brigida (whether of Ireland or Scotland matters little) made her fame as a ‘daughter of God’; long before to Colum in Iona or to Patrick ‘the great Cleric’ in Ireland ‘Holy St. Bride’ revealed in a vision the service she had done to Mary and the Child in far-away Bethlehem [Pg 78] in the East; before ever the first bell of Christ was heard by startled Druids coming across the hills and forest lands of Gaul, the Gaels worshipped a Brighde or Bride, goddess of women, of fire, of poetry. ”

“ But her popularity is seen in the continuation of her personality and cult in those of S. Brigit, at {69} whose shrine in Kildare a sacred fire, which must not be breathed on, or approached by a male, was watched daily by nineteen nuns in turn, and on the twentieth day by the saint herself.225 Similar sacred fires were kept up in other monasteries,226 and they point to the old cult of a goddess of fire, the nuns being successors of a virgin priesthood like the vestals, priestesses of Vesta. ”

“ There were many establishments in Ireland which owed their origin to Kildare. Saint Bridget's influence, we are told, 'like a fruitful vine, spreading all around with growing branches,' extended itself through the whole country. But their record seems, for the most part, to have perished. In a few places we read of abbesses, as for example in Clonburren on the Shannon, and Clonbroney in the County Longford. ”

“ Brigid of Abernethy was cousin of Graverdus, king of the Picts, who during his wars with the Britons was admonished by supernatural means to send to Ireland for Brigid, and follow her advice. She came with St. Mazota and eight holy virgins, and settled at Abernethy, and there built a church, where the king was baptized. ”

“ Cormac, king and bishop of Cashel, explains the word as a ‘fiery dart;’ but this looks like one of the many late and untrustworthy interpretations of Keltic names.
Brighid was always a favourite female name in Ireland, and has become one of the very few Keltic ones of European popularity. This was owing to a maiden who was brought up by a bard, and 236afterwards became a pupil of St. Patrick; and from a solitary recluse at Kildare, rose to be the head of five hundred nuns, and was consulted by the synod of bishops. ”

“ Even when a mere girl living with her parents, her father was often displeased with her for giving away necessary things belonging to the house to poor people who came in their [Pg 110] misery to beg from her. It happened on one occasion that her father drove her in his chariot to Naas (in Kildare) , where then lived Dunlang king of Leinster; and dismounting, he entered the palace, leaving his sword behind—a beautiful and valuable one—while Brigit remained in charge of horse and chariot. A wretched looking poor man with sickness and want in his face came up and begged for some relief. ”

“ She promised that all the days of life that remained to her should be dedicated to carrying out his will, and that she would stay in the country of his adoption and walk in his footsteps as far as her weakness allowed. Then brilliant lights and sweet odours announced the ascent of the soul of Andrew, and all the people came and venerated their dead saint. Brigid left the monastery and settled near the source of the Sieci, high up in the Val d’Arno, where she founded a church in honour of St. ”

“ There are many larger castles of the same kind in different parts of Ireland, but there are not many of its age in such a good state of preservation. There is a church in the immediate proximity of the castle, and the exact date of its erection seems also unknown. It is in a state of almost utter ruin. The County Louth can boast of having been the birth-place of St Brigit. She was born at Fachart, only a few miles from Castletown, but it was in Kildare she spent almost all her life, and it was there she died and was buried. ”

“ Ireland.
[6] "Nennidh was a student, perhaps at Kildare, when St. Bridget happening one day to be with some of her nuns near the monastery, saw him running very fast and in an unbecoming manner. Having sent for and inquired of him whither he was running in such haste, he replied, as if in jest, To the Kingdom of Heaven. Whereupon the saint gravely said, I wish I deserved to run along with you to-day to that Kingdom, pray for me that I may reach it. Affected by these words, the young man besought her to recommend him to God that he might pursue a steady course towards Heaven. ”

“ I said, "it was Saint Patrick who founded this very church, and you have him and Saint Brigid and Saint Columba buried in your churchyard."
"Yes, and we're proud to have them," he retorted quickly, "for they weren't Romanists—they were just Christians, and good ones, too. The Protestants of Ireland can honour Patrick and Brigid just as much as the Catholics do. It wasn't till long after their day that the Irish church made submission to Rome." ”