Saint Columba's Hymn to Saint Brigid

We begin a series of posts to run until the octave of Saint Brigid's Day with a translation of the hymn Brigit bé bithmaith, one of the earliest Irish language hymns, possibly going back to the seventh century. The preface in the Irish Liber Hymnorum suggests a number of possible authors including Saints Ultan of Ardbreccan, Broccán Clóen and Columba. I have already posted two alternative translations at the blog, one by Whitley Stokes from an 1868 article on Broccán Clóen which you can read here and another here from 1908 where authorship is attributed to Saint Columba. The translation below appeared in the Boston Catholic newspaper The Pilot in 1848, it is much less literal than either of the others, but its rhyming style would have appealed to a nineteenth-century audience. The hymn is also attributed to Saint Columba here by author "J.C.M.":

ST. COLUMBA'S HYMN TO ST. BRIDGET.

FROM THE LIBER HYMNORUM*

Oh, Bridget, Virgin ever bright, 

Oh, golden torch of love and light, 

Rich lamp illumining earth's dark dome, 

Guide us to our eternal home! 

 

Defend us, Bridget, mighty Saint, 

From every evil touch and taint; 

Defend us from all wiles and woes. 

And from our fierce infernal foes. 

 

Create in us, anew, afresh, 

A spirit that shall hate the flesh: 

Oh! Blessed Virgin, Mother, give 

To all new power to love and live! 

 

Thou holiest saint of these our days, 

Worthy unutterable praise, 

Protect green Leinster from all harm 

And keep her sons from vain alarm! 

 

O! pillar of our kingdom, grandest! 

To Patrick next, that chief, thou standest! 

Thou blessed maid, thou Queen of Queens. 

On thee each soul devoutly leans! 

 

And after this vain life be past. 

Oh, let our lot with thine be cast! 

And save us in that last dread day 

When Heaven and Earth shall flee away!

J.C.M.

* “A work more than a thousand years old, if the copy in Colgan’s possession, now in St. Isidore’s, Rome, be the same as that in Trinity College library.

Boston Pilot, Volume XI, Number 40, 30 September 1848

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