We close the series of posts in honour of Saint Brigid based on the work of Alice Curtayne with the author's own conclusions about the relationship of our patroness with her people. It is one which she sees as having been carried in the heart and best expressed in the humble historic settings of the mud cabin, the Mass-rock or by those on the run from persecution, rather than in grand cathedrals. It is interesting to see that despite associating Saint Brigid with feminism and modernity, Alice Curtayne returns to traditional tropes in the final chapter of her book St. Brigid of Ireland :
It will be conceded that we cannot in Ireland worship the earthly remains of Brigid in any worthy fashion. One may state, without fear of giving offence, that no monument to her in this country expresses in any fitting manner her vast and enduring significance to the Irish race. But in direct contrast to the paucity of her relics, to the silence concerning her in stone, is the profusion of her traditions and the ardent, vehement devotion to her that is being forever proclaimed by the Irish people. The blank absence of the one is as chilling, as the emphatic presence of the other is warm. If her people have not painted and carved and wrought and built in her honour, yet neither most assuredly have they forgotten. And in this respect the cult of Saint Brigid of Ireland is the most sublime offering ever laid at the feet of mortal woman, because with so little material aid or external symbol of any kind, it has burned with such ardour through fifteen hundred years, fed by the spirit only.
Saint Brigid has never been worshipped in her own land under the loftv dome of splendid cathedrals. Her people’s conception of her has not yet been expressed in marble for the niches of palace walls: nor traced in delicate mosaics; nor painted in glowing frescoes; nor even enshrined in a literature through which genius might exalt her. It is in mud cabins of the rudest description, or beside the Mass-rock in some wind-swept glen, by fugitives in concealment and in flight, in underground caves, or emigrant ships, in the slave-gangs of the Barbadoes, in the basement kitchens of Pagan cities, that she has been steadfastly worshipped in the heart.
Alice Curtayne, St. Brigid of Ireland, (Dublin 1933).
We conclude with a prayer appended to Alice Curtayne's pamphlet St Brigid- The Mary of Ireland:
PRAYER TO ST. BRIGID
Dear Saint Brigid, brilliant star of sanctity in the early days of our Irish faith and love for the omnipotent God who has never forsaken us, we look up to you now in earnest, hopeful prayer. By your glorious sacrifice of earthly riches, joys, and affections, obtain for us grace to "seek first the Kingdom of God and His justice" with constant trust in His fatherly care. By your life of laborious charity to the poor, the sick, the many seekers for light and comfort, obtain for us grace to be God's helpers to the utmost of our power during our stay on earth, looking forward, as you did, to our life with Him during eternity.
By the sanctified peace of your death-bed, obtain for us that we may receive the fullness of pardon and peace when the hour comes that will summon us to the judgement seat of our just and most merciful Lord. Amen.
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