Brigid's Grave

 

Although I have a number of posts relating to the burial-place of Saint Patrick at this blog I have never explored the grave of Saint Brigid to this same extent, probably because we are told in the Life by Cogitosus that she was buried at the side of the High Altar at Kildare, where her tomb drew huge crowds of pilgrims. This is exactly the setting in which one would expect to find the remains of an important monastic founder saint, but a later tradition claims that Saint Brigid's remains had to be moved following the Viking raids on Kildare which began in the early ninth century. In the late twelfth-century Bishop Malachy III claimed to have had a dream or vision in which he was led to discover the bodies of the three patrons of Ireland - Saints Patrick, Brigid and Colm Cille - at Downpatrick, County Down, much to the delight of the self-styled Prince of Ulster, Norman conqueror John de Courcy. Thus in 1186 Saint Brigid found herself resting in Downpatrick Cathedral in the company of her fellow-patrons, at least according to this later tradition. Now why Kildare would have permitted its beloved founding saint to be taken north is usually explained by the need to protect her from those marauding Vikings. But if this is so then it would seem to have been a case of out of the frying pan into the fire, since Downpatrick itself was attacked in 825. Such are the two traditions about Saint Brigid's grave with which I am familiar, but below is a 1929 newspaper report which raises yet another possibility - that Saint Brigid's body had been taken to Brittany. I will try to follow up on this story to see if I can find out any further details: 

Brigid's Grave.

CONTROVERSY CONTINUES OVER BURIAL.

It is not easy to conjecture, writes a correspondent, as to how the bodies of Patrick, Brigid and Columcille, which historical belief has it were revealed to St. Malachy in the 11th century to have lain in a grave in Ireland, could have come at about the same date to have had the record of having rested for some centuries in a grave in Brittany. Nevertheless, the evidence extant as to the latter would seem sufficiently conclusive to cast reasonable doubt upon, at least, the tradition that the body of St. Brigid rests in the Downpatrick grave. 

In the year 1626 Herbert, Archbishop of Bourges, had the Brittany coffin opened. Two skeletons only were found, and the skull of one was missing. The skeletons were then at the Abbey of Notre Dame du Chateau, on the Theels River, in the episcopal jurisdiction of Bourges. They were examined again and re-attested by the diocesan authorities there about 35 years ago, declared, of course, as the bodies of the Irish saints. 

It is, however, curious 'to observe that, though only two skeletons are actually on evidence, the official attestation cites explicitly: 'Corpora Sanctae Brigidae, Sancti Columbae, et Sancti Patricii.' St. Brigid, it will be noted, is first mentioned. But the official document is merely a Latin translation, made by a priest, of the statement written by a pious merchant, Francois Lege, who had saved the sacred treasures of the abbey from spoliation during the Revolution. Possibly the body of St. Patrick is alone interred at Downpatrick.

Freeman's Journal, Thursday 25 April 1929, page 46.

 

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