Saint Brigid of Kildare or Brigid of Ireland is one of Ireland's patron saints, along with Patrick and Columba. Irish hagiography makes her an early Irish Christian nun, abbess, and foundress of several monasteries of nuns, including that of Kildare in Ireland, which was famous and was revered. Her feast day is 1 February, which was originally a pagan festival called Imbolc, marking the beginni
Background
There is some debate over whether St Brigid was a real person. She has the same name, associations and feast day as the Celtic goddess Brigid, and there are many supernatural events, legends and folk customs associated with her.
Brigid was born in the year 452 AD in Faughart, just north of Dundalk in County Louth, Ireland. Because of the legendary quality of the earliest accounts of her life, there is much debate among many secular scholars and even Christians as to the authenticity of her biographies. Three biographies agree that her mother was Brocca, a Christian Pict and slave who had been baptised by Saint Patrick. They name her father as Dubhthach, a chieftain of Leinster.
Career
Brigid belonged to the noble family of the Fotharta in Offaly, and her girlhood story is one of filial rebellion. Sha wanted to be a nun, but her father did not understand her vocation and would have preferred her to take the more normal course of marriage. But Brigid found a powerful sympathizer in Bishop Macaille, who enabled her to found her first community of nuns. Brigid's most significant settlement was made about the year a. d. 487 at Kildare in the center of the great plain now known as the Curragh. It was a double monastery of monks and nuns. The modern authority, Dom Gougaud, O. S. B. , remarks: "Such an organization had no chance of surviving save in an extremely pure spiritual atmosphere, and this the influence of the Irish monks of that age was certainly likely to produce. " The first bishop-abbot to rule over the monks' half of the settlement was Conlaeth, now patron saint of the Kildare diocese. Known as one of the "three chief artisans of Ireland, " he set up a school of metalwork and manuscript illumination which supplied the rapidly expanding church with bells, crosiers, chalices, patens, shrines, and illuminated copies of the Gospels. A monk of Kildare, Cogitosus, Brigid's first biographer, who wrote about a hundred years after her death, described the Kildare church as it was in his day, giving a glimpse of the wealth lavished on the shrine by the grateful Irish kings. Nothing remains today of that ancient splendor. The site is now occupied by a Protestant cathedral of little historic interest. Near it is a well-preserved, medieval Round Tower, a landmark to the surrounding countryside. Brigid was remarkable for brevity of speech, hospitality, gaiety, love of music and song, and boundless generosity to the poor. Her legends have a charming pastoral character, making her the tutelar spirit of Irish homes and farmsteads. She tended sheep, worked in the dairy, and supervised such field operations as sowing and harvesting. Among her pets were a wild fox and a boar that she had tamed. The wild duck came at her call. These episodes provide a strong analogy between Celtic Christianity and the later Franciscan movement. Brigid died on February 1, 524, and her body is interred in Downpatrick Cathedral. Her right hand is said to be preserved at Lumiar, near Lisbon, Portugal, and another relic is kept at St. Martin's, Cologne. Her feast day is February 1.
Brigid is celebrated for her generosity to the poor. In her case, most of the miracles associated with her relate to healing and household tasks usually attributed to women. Brigid was known to turn water into beer. She helped a distressed wife by giving her a love potion for her husband. The prayers of Saint Brigid were known to still the wind and the rain.