Prince, Poet, Priest and Saint

Marking the feast of Saint Colum Cille with an article published 120 years ago in the Australian Catholic newspaper, The Southern Cross. The writer 'J.B' of Sydney was a frequent contributor to the Australian religious press at this time. I find his articles solidly-based with a good use of hagiographical and liturgical sources. Here he looks at Saint Colum Cille in all his complexity as 'prince, poet, priest and saint' and concludes by inviting the reader to join in the collect for the saint's feast: 

Prince, Poet, Priest, and Saint.

The third great patron saint, of Ireland, the man who stands out almost as conspicuously as St, Patrick himself in the religious history of the Gael, the most renowned missionary, scribe, scholar, poet, statesman, anchorite, and school founder of the sixth century is St. Columcille. Everything about this remarkable man has conspired to fix upon him the imagination of the Irish race. He was not, like St. Patrick, of alien, nor like St. Brigid, of semi-servile birth, but was sprung from the highest and bluest blood of the Irish, being son of Felimidh, son of Fergus, son of Conall Gulban—renowned to this day in saga and romance—son of Niall of the nine hostages, that great monarch of Ireland who ravaged Britain and exacted tributes far and wide from his conquered enemies. He was born on the 7th of December, 523, twenty-nine years after the reputed death of St. Patrick, and four years before that of St. Brigid, at Gartan in Donegal, a wild but beautiful district, of which his father was the prince. The reigning monarch of Ireland was his half-uncle, while his mother, Ethne, was the direct descendant of the royal line of Cathoir (Cauheer) Mor, the regnant family of Leinster, and he himself would have had some chance of the reversion of the monarchy had he been minded to press his claims. 

Reared at Kilmacrenan, near Gartan, the place where the O'Donnells were afterwards inaugurated, he received his first teaching at the hands of St. Finnian in his famous school at Moville, for already since St. Patrick's death Ireland had become dotted with such small colleges. It was here that his schoolfellows christened him  Colum-Cille, or Calum of the Church, on account of the assiduity with which he sought the sacred temple. At this period the Christian clergy and the Catholic Order were the only two educational powers in Ireland, and after leaving Moville Columcille travelled south into Leinster to a bard called German, with whom he took lessons. From him he went to St. Finnian of Clonard, St. Ciaran (Keeran) was at this time a fellow student with him, and Finnian, says the Irish Life, saw one night a vision, "to wit, two moons arose from Clonard, a golden moon, and a silver moon. The golden moon went into the North of Ireland, and Ireland and Scotland gleamed under it. The silver moon went on until it stayed by the Shannon, and Ireland at her centre gleamed." The silver moon symbolised St. Ciaran, the golden moon represented St. Columcille. The saint was only twenty-five years of age when he founded Derry, his first religious institution, and like every man's firstling, it remained dear to him to the last. "Were the tribute of all Alba mine," said he, "from its centre to its border, I would prefer the site of one house in the middle of Derry. The reason I love Derry is for its quietness, for its purity, and for the crowds of white angels from the one end to the other. My Derry, my little oak grove, my dwelling, and my little cell, and Eternal God in heaven above, woe be to him who violates it." 

Columcille continued his labors in Ireland founding churches and monasteries and schools, until he was forty-two years of age. He was at this time at the height of his physical and mental powers, a man of masterful character, of fine physique, and enjoying a reputation second to that of none in Erin. The Commentator in the Feilire of Angus describes his appearance as that of "a man well formed, with powerful frame; his skin was white, his face was broad and fair and radiant, lit up with large, grey luminous eyes; his large and well-shaped head was crowned except where he wore his frontal tonsure, with close and curling hair. His voice was clear and resonant, so that he could be heard at the distance of fifteen hundred paces, yet sweet with more than the sweetness of the bards." His activity was incessant. "Not a single hour of the day," says Adamnan, "did he leave unoccupied, without engaging either in prayer, or in reading, or in writing, of in some other work," and he labored with his hands as well as with his head, cooking or looking after his ploughman, or engaged in ecclesiastical or secular matters. 

When St. Columcille left Ireland and settled in Iona. he was then in the prime of life. Twelve companions, amongst them two first cousins and his uncle, accompanied him in his voyage. For thirty-four years subsequently he was the legislator and captain of Christianity in those northern regions. The King of the Picts received baptism at his hands, the Kings of the Scottish colony, his kinsmen, received the crown from him on their accession, to the throne. The islet of Iona was presented to him by one of those princes. Here he and his companions built with their own hands their parent-house, and from this Hebridean rock in after times was shaped the spiritual and temporal destinies of many tribes and kingdoms. Formed by his teaching and example, there went out from it apostles to Iceland, to. the Orkneys, to Northumbria, to Man, and to South Britain. A hundred monasteries in Ireland (looked to him as their Patriarch. His rule of monastic life was sought for by chiefs, bards, and converted Druids. Clients seeking direction from his wisdom, or protection through his power, were constantly arriving and departing from his sacred isle. Before his death St. Columcille paid one visit to his beloved Ireland, and made a comparatively long stay. 

At length he returned to Iona, where, far into the evening of life, he waited for his summons to the beatific vision. His day of departure came in A.D. 596. Death found him at the ripe age of nearly eighty years, stylus in hand, toiling cheerfully over the vellum page. It was the last night of the week when the presentiment of his end came strongly upon him. "This day," he said to his disciple and successor, Dermid, "is called the day of rest, and such it will be for me, for it will finish my labors." Laying down the manuscript, he added, "Let Baithen finish the rest." Just after Matins on the Sunday morning he peacefully passed away from the midst of his brethren. Both education and nature had well fitted him for the great task of adding another realm to the domain of Christendom. His princely birth gave him power over his own proud kindred; his golden eloquence and glowing verse—the fragments of which still move and delight the Gaelic scholar—gave him fame and weight in the Christian schools, which had sprung up in every glen and island. As prince he stood on equal terms with princes; as poet he was affiliated to that all powerful bardic order, before whose awful anger kings trembled and warriors succumbed in superstitions dread. A spotless soul, a disciplined body, an indomitable energy, an industry that never wearied, a courage that never blanched, a sweetness and courtesy than won all hearts, a tenderness for others that contrasted strongly with his rigor towards himself, these were, in the words of McGee, the secrets of the success of this eminent missionary, these were the miracles by which be accomplished the conversion of so many barbarous tribes, and of so many pagan princes. His feast is celebrated on the 9th of June, and on that day the Church addresses to him the following prayer, in which she desires her children to join:—

"Let the intercession of the Blessed Abbot Columba, we beseech Thee, O Lord, commend us to Thee, that what by our own merits we are unworthy to receive, we may obtain by his patronage, through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Sydney. J. B.

"Prince, Poet, Priest, and Saint." Southern Cross, 19 February 1904.

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Saint Patrick: His Prayers

Marking the feast of Saint Patrick with a 1909 Australian newspaper account recalling the Moses tradition of Saint Patrick, who, like the leader of the Israelites ascends a holy mountain, fasts for forty days, asks for God's mercy on his people and that he may be their judge at the end of time. It's a wonderful testimony to the power of prayer and to perseverance as well as to the reputation of Croagh Patrick as Ireland's holy mountain. Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig Oraibh Go Léir!

Saint Patrick

 His PRAYERS

St Patrick's Day falls in the middle of Lent, but it is always a feast-day. Legend tells that the patron saint of Ireland himself fasted once for 40 days. Cruach Patrick is one of the most beautiful mountains in Ireland, and the view from the summit embraces sea and land, lakes and rivers. It was on this venerable and venerated eminence that St Patrick, according to his biographer, won the highest gift for Ireland. He went to the summit to appeal to Heaven by prayer.  "It was the begining of Lent when he climbed the mountain," says the ancient chronicler “and he remained there forty days, fasting, praying, saying Mass and weeping. He suffered greatly during that time. He made four kinds of petitions on the mountain. He asked that Ireland should be tree for ever from slavery to barbarians. And he prayed that the people who would say his prayer from the words 'Christ be with me' to the end, and who would do penance in Ireland, should be saved. He asked that he himself should be the judge of the Irish people on the day of general judgment, and particularly he prayed that Ireland should never lose the faith. After the first request the Angel of the Lord came and said, ' You get your request. Go down now from the mountain.' ' I will not go,' said Patrick, ' I am not satisfied yet.' After the second petition the Angel came again and said: 'Your petition is granted; go down from the mountain. You have got enough'  'I will not go,' said Patrick, 'I suffered much on the mountain. My cowl is wet with the rain, and and many and exceeding great have been the temptations I suffered here. I will not go down till all my petitions are granted'. The Angel then departed from him and went up to Heaven. Then the demons came and made a desperate attack on Patrick. Great was the conflict and the battle but Patrick fought valiantly, and with prayer, and with the sign of the Cross, finally putting them to flight. And it is said that at the same time he banished the serpents and large reptiles out of Ireland and drove them into the ocean. In the evening the Angel came again. ' What news do you bring now?' said Patrick.  'All your requests are granted ' replied the Angel.. ' I will go down, then,' said Patrick, 'I am satisfied. Thanks to the generous King, who gave heed to my petitions.' "

 It is no wonder that the Irishmen love and respect Cruach Patrick, and that there is a pilgrimage there even to this day. Cruach Patrick is the Mount Horeb of Ireland; it is the holy mountain of the country.
 

 The Border Chronicle, Friday, March 19, 1909, page 3.

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Saint Brigid: Greatest of Irishwomen

We conclude the series of posts in honour of the feast of Saint Brigid with an account from the Catholic Press in Sydney of the translation of her skull relic from Lumiar in Portugal to Killester in County Dublin. Canon O'Hanlon's full account of the history of this relic can be read at the blog here. In the 1929 newspaper account below, which seems to be based on the sermon preached on the occasion by the Very Rev. E. Cullen, C.M., D.D., President of St. Patrick's Training College, Drumcondra, we have a sketch of the history of the Killester area and its elusive former nunnery. We see the saint placed in the context of her patronage of Leinster but also as one of the three national patrons, indeed as 'the central figure in Ireland's wonder-working triad'. There were some very lofty hopes expressed on the occasion of this translation in 1929, looking back almost one hundred years later I am not sure we can say that they were ever realized.

THE MARY OF THE GAEL.

SAINT BRIGID. 

GREATEST OF IRISHWOMEN!

All the roads of Leinster led to Howth road, Clontarf, on Sunday, January 27, when his Grace Most Rev. Dr. Byrne, Archbishop of Dublin, performed the ceremony of enshrining a relic of St. Brigid in, the beautiful new church at Killester, dedicated to the Patroness of Ireland. There was High Mass at noon, at which the Archbishop presided, and the Very Rev. E. Cullen, C.M., D.D., President of St. Patrick's Training College, Drumcondra, preached. 

A Golden Link.

This in an epoch-marking event, and one that is likely to stand out in our ecclesiastical history through the ages to come. It is, indeed, an event to stir the hearts of Irish Catholics the world over — a landmark in the annals of the Faith in Ireland, said Dr. Cullen. The sacred relic — a bone of St. Brigid 's head from her famous shrine at Lumiar, in Portugal — spans the wide gulf of fourteen hundred years to form a precious link between our age and the Golden Age of our country's history, when Christianity in Ireland was nearing its full meridian splendour. 

A Proud Distinction. 

And what Cill-dara of St. Brigid was to our forefathers for nearly half a thousand years after Brigid's death, while it still held her holy relics — a place of national pilgrimage — St. Brigid's Church, Killester, should in time become. Of all the churches in Ireland to-day it alone possesses an actual fragment of the sacred body of our beloved Patroness, our own Brigid, the Mary of the Gael. What a singular privilege, not alone for Killester and the parish of Coolock, but for the Archdiocese of Dublin. 

Killester's Tradition. 

This new church of St. Brigid is but carrying on a particular veneration of the national Patroness, for which the neighbourhood of Killester was noted in earlier times. Far back in the ages of the Faith there was a church of St. Brigid adjoining the narrow by-road, known now as Killester Lane, the fragmentary ruins of which may still be seen in the old graveyard lying between the Malahide and Howth roads. 

Beyond the facts that it was an appendage to Christ Church Cathedral in the days of St. Laurence O'Toole, and passed at length into Protestant hands — like the ancient St. Bride's in Dublin city — little is known of its story. 

Brigidine Nunnery. 

That there was also a convent here in the distant past, probably a pre-Reformation nunnery under the rule and patronage of St. Brigid (as there was in the neighbouring parish of Swords), may be inferred from a name, 'The Nuns' Walk,' by which a secluded path near the old church Is still known. Though D"Alton who wrote his history of County Dublin ninety years ago, says nothing on the subject of a convent at Killester, the Ordnance maps mark a building 'Convent in ruins' in the immediate neighbourhood. 

Claimed by Leinster. 

Although born within the ancient division of Ulster, and regarded as a national figure even while she lived, Brigid has always been claimed by the people of Leinster as peculiarly their own. Thus in a very ancient Gaelic poem she is addressed as the 'princess of the men of Leinster,' while the hymn composed in her honour by St. Columcille alludes to her as the 'dear saint of Lagenia.' St. Ultan of Ardbrechan, who also sang her praises in elegant verse, leaves no doubt as to his own belief that there were special grounds for the claim when he exclaims: 'I shall be saved in all things by my Leinster saint.' Later writers have found a cause for this claim in the theory that Brigid's father was a chieftain of Leinster, whose principal fort was in Kildare, and that the birth of the saint took place at Faughart, north of Dundalk, during a visit of the family to that district. 

The Three Patrons. 

Be this as it may, the fact remains that Brigid is primarily a national saint, the central figure in Ireland's wonder-working triad — Patrick, Brigid, and Columcille. Patrick, the Apostle had planted the standard of the Faith in every part of the island when Brigid entered on her career, and to her as Abbess of Kildare he entrusted the duty of consolidating the marvellous victory over pagan error he himself had lived to achieve. When Brigid, in turn, was called to heaven, the entire land (which up to the coming of Patrick had been the 'Insula Sacra' of Druid worship) had been won for the Risen Christ; and Columcille was already a stripling of fair promise. 

Beloved by All.

Unlike the two others, Brigid lived her entire life in the island of the Gael. Her missionary labours brought her into every province and into close association with the mightiest as well as the lowliest in the land. In her cell of the Oak, the Kildare of our days, she was consulted by bishops and visited by kings, and yet was so. sympathetic and accessible that hunted slaves threw themselves into her arms for protection, while the simple poor ran to her for counsel and comfort in their everyday troubles Little wonder she was so personally beloved in her own time, or that the generations have crowned her spiritual queen of the Irish race, the Mary of Ireland. 

Her Name Cherished. 

Not alone did the fraternity of the olden poet-saints of Ireland — Fiaac, Nathfriach, and Ultan; Columcille, Brendan, and Brogen Cloen; Ninnidh and Kilian of Inisceltra — write each a metrical life of the Patroness, or compose a hymn in her honour, but local rulers assumed her name. Under the pious title of O'Maoilbrighde the 'majestic chiefs of Bredagh' in the West figure in song and story. This name, .according to Dr. O 'Donovan, was in later times shortened to O'Mulbride, and finally anglicised MacBride. 

Others linked her name to their own, and had their children christened Giollabrighde, signifying the Servant of Brigid; while priests and monks took the name in religion of Brigidianus or Calvus Brigitae, the Shaveling or Tonsured of Brigid. Thus, and in a hundred other ways, has the memory of the great St. Brigid survived as an intimate and tender part of the lives of her people down to our own times.

The shrine in which the relic of St. Brigid will repose in Killester Church is modelled on the exquisite shrine for St. Patrick's Bell, was designed by Mr. Robinson, the architect of St. Brigid's, and made by Messrs. Gunning.

Catholic Press, Thursday 21 March 1929, page 10.

 

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Saint Brigid, Prototype of Religious Life

 

We continue the series of posts in honour of Saint Brigid with a late nineteenth-century article which reminds us that Saint Brigid was first and foremost a nun. I am not sure of the identity of the person behind the pseudonym 'Iota', but s/he has used episodes from hagiography and the lessons from the Roman Breviary to present a picture of Saint Brigid as a consecrated virgin who embodies the monastic virtues of humility and chastity. This piece reminds us too of the days when there were so many vocations to the religious life in Ireland that Irish nuns were to be found serving missions all over the world. The final paragraph sees the writer defending the religious life to those 'who look upon it with eyes other than the eyes of faith' (perhaps a reminder that this piece was written in predominantly Protestant Australia), and asserts the value of those who are dedicated to a life of prayer in averting the wrath of God:

ST. BRIGID.
By Iota.

She once was a lady of honour and wealth,
Bright glow'd on her features the roses of health ;
Her vesture was "blended of silk and of gold,
And her motion shook perfume from every fold.

Behold her ye worldly! behold her ye vain!
Who shrink from the pathway of virtue and pain
Who yield up to pleasure your nights and your days,
Forgetful of service, forgetful of praise;
Ye lazy philosophers, self-seeking men,
Ye fire-side philanthropists, great at the pen;
How stands in the balance your eloquence weigh'd,
With the life and the deeds of that high born maid ?

Gerald Griffin's, Sister of Charity.

Last week, and the week before we were occupied in reflecting upon the life of St. Patrick. Now these reflections on St. Patrick would be incomplete were we not to say some thing about two Saints who were intimately connected with him — St Brigid and St. Columba of Iona. This week then we shall treat of the life of St. Brigid, or, as our fathers loved to call her, the Mary of Ireland. At some other time we shall treat of the life of St. Columba.

From the days of St. Brigid there has streamed out upon Ireland such a radiance of chastity as alone would be argument sufficient of the sanctity of Saint Patrick's teaching. The innumerable number of nuns, who through the length and breadth of Ireland, devote themselves to the service of God, and to the service of God's poor aye, the innumerable numbers of young virgins who devote themselves to God, who quit their homes, their kith and kin, that, in far foreign lands they' may minister to the poor, and the lowly, the sick, and the infirm, the widow and the orphan — all, all those faithful daughters of Innisfail, look back to St. Brigid as to their model, their patron, their example, their guide, their mother.

Who, then, was this glorious St. Brigid? She was lineally descended from Eocad, brother to Con of the hundred battles, monarch of Ireland. She was born at Fochard, near Dundalk, about the year 453. When St. Brigid was a mere child, her father beheld men, dressed in white, pouring oil upon her head. This was considered a foresign of her future sanctity. In her youth she selected Jesus Christ, her heavenly spouse, as her portion. Consequently when on account of her extreme beauty and comeliness she was anxiously sought after in marriage, we need not wonder that she asked Almighty God to take away from her that beauty which caused her so much annoyance and perplexity. Her prayer was heard, and, as we read in the Roman Breviary, suddenly one of her eyes becomes inflamed, and all her beauty and comeliness forsook her. The result of this miraculous change was that the heralds of the prince who sought the hand of our saint left in disgust.

 

Although St. Brigid was intimately acquainted with St. Patrick, it was not from him she received the religious veil. St. Maccaille gave it to her in one of the earliest established convents in Ireland. She travelled into every portion of Ireland, founding religious houses as she passed, and doing good unto all. In 480 she founded her greatest house, at Kildare, or, as it is called, the Church of the Oaks. This became the largest and most celebrated convent that ever existed in Ireland. So large, so extensive was it that a holy ancorite named Conlath was consecrated Bishop to perform the pontifical duties which became necessary in it. The countless numbers of young girls and young widows who thronged around St. Brigid for admission to her convent proclaims trumpet-tongued the perfect conversion of Ireland to Catholicity.

St. Brigid's most distinguishing virtue was her excessive humility —the foundation of all other virtues. We have it related that she not unfrequently fed with her own hand the convent cattle. The habit of her order was white, and for centuries after her time her rule was the only one observed in the convents of Ireland.

Almost innumerable were the miracles performed by St. Brigid during her lifetime. At the time of her religious profession she touched with her hand the wooden altar step, and forthwith it that was arid and dry became green and fresh, and with the miraculous revival of the wood was restored to St. Brigid all her former beauty and comeliness. During her lifetime she cleansed the lepers, restored health to the sick, sight to the blind, and perhaps the most extraordinary miracle of her life was one performed in favour of a Bishop. A certain woman accused Broonus, a Bishop, of being the father of her illegitimate child. St. Brigid made the sign of the Cross on the lips of the infant, and forthwith the babe spoke and declared, who was its father. Thus, through St. Brigid, was the good name of a holy Bishop restored. St. Bridgid, too, was endowed with the gift of prophecy, she even foretold the time of the death of St. Patrick, whom she reverently called the father of her soul.

There is a dispute regarding the time of the death of St. Brigid, as well as regarding the place of her burial. The annals of the four masters say she died in 525. This is the most probable date. Some authors contend that her remains were buried on one side of the altar in the Cathedral church of Kildare, while others hold that her ashes commingle with those of St. Patrick at Dourepatrick [Downpatrick]. We do not desire to enter upon this controversy, yet we hold with the Roman Breviary that she and our glorious Apostle, St. Patrick, or rather their ashes, rest awaiting a glorious resurrection in the same tomb at Downpatrick.

Many writers who look only at the severe side of conventual life, and who look upon it with eyes other than the eyes of faith, consider it excessive and unnecessary. I differ very widely from these writers. The religious life, the conventual life, if you will, isolates the individual professing it from all others. By their vows they break the ties that bind them to the world. Friendship and family disappear as far as they are opposed to the object of religious life, namely, union with God. The religious is a person who, though dwelling upon earth, is entirely consecrated to the things of heaven. Property, that powerful link which unites individuals and families, and makes them cling to a fixed place as trees cling to the earth from which they receive life, does not exist for a religious. Yes, the religious, for the love of Jesus, renounces everything. Yes, the religious is, by the vow of poverty, freely made, condemned to possess nothing. The vow of chastity deprives the religious of family. The vow of obedience does not permit the religious to select one place of abode in preference to another. The religious is an exception to all others in everything save the love of God. The life of a religious is wholly absorbed in God, and when as in the time of Noe, God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and when God feels inclined to say as he said then in the day of his wrath that it repented Him that He had made man, when he feels inclined to say again, I will destroy man whom I have created, what is it that restrains His hand? It is the prayers of the holy monks or the prayers of the holy nuns who, like unto their prototype, St. Brigid, pour forth acts of adoration, love and reparation, to the throne of the most high God, before Jesus, ever present in the Adorable Sacrament of the Altar.

IOTA.

Perth, July 14, 1896.


"ST. BRIGID." The W.A. Record, 18 July 1896.

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Sweet Saint Bride

 

We continue the series of posts with a Scottish view of Saint Brigid, or Saint Bride as she is called here, from 1905. I am struck by how the author (despite her archetypal Scottish name) includes a distinctly English perspective and compares Saint Brigid with the great northern English female saint, Hilda of Whitby. By making a clear distinction between 'Hilda the Teuton' and 'Bride the Gael' the writer reflects racial stereotypes of hard-headed, practical Saxons and dreamy, otherworldly Celts common at this time. The Celtic twilight fantasies of 'Fiona Macleod' also make an appearance. Since the posts in this series have all been drawn from the archives of the Australian and New Zealand press, I am surprised by the claim that Saint Brigid's Day is 'a holy day to few or none outside her own country'. On the contrary, these newspaper accounts testify to the feast of the Irish patroness being very much alive on the other side of the world:

SWEET SAINT BRIDE
By Jessie Mackay
 

Paul said, and Peter said. 

And every saint in heaven said 

That none had a fairer face 

Than sweet Saint Bride.

Thus, or all but thus, runs the legend beneath a late Academy picture in London; a picture of Saint Bridget, who was also the adored Saint Bride of Scotland, and the Isles, Saint Bride of Bothwell,  patroness of the wild Douglases: Saint Brigid or Brigitta, venerated at many shrines both in France and Germany. So much is attested by place, name, and by chronicle; and in the luxuriant maze of old Celtic tradition, Saint Bride bore higher titles yet, being called by her own people, "Mary of the Gael,'' or "Mary of Ireland"; while in medieval French  books of church service she was styled without limitation, '"Altera Maria,"' the Other Madonna. 

 Under the immense mass of legendary miracle attached to the name of St .Bridget, there lies undoubtedly the reality of a life renowned, devoted, and pure; a life which, judging by its lingering impress on time, has been called the very female flower of Celtic Christianity. It is impossible to think of her thus without a curious pathetic linking of her name with that of the later-born Hilda of Whitby, who bore the same high relation to the Teutonic Christianity of Britain. Types of race they were, in their lives of like aim, but unlike result. It is beyond doubt that Bride the Gael was the greater in her lifetime, the more widely known and revered; but it is the work of Hilda the Teuton that has come down in a clearer light of history to us. A hundred bards tuned their lyres to the lays of heaven at the voice of Bride; far and wide they bore the new songs of peace in that wild age; but they long since passed to their own, leaving but echoes melting in the nameless sea-winds of the west; whereas the one home-abiding English singer, reared in the house of the home-abiding Hilda, has made Whitby immortal; after 14 hundred years, the name of Caedmon is yet green. Loving, high-souled, mystical, the spirit of the Celt dispersed itself, not vainly, but intangibly, amid the western sea winds; the spirit of the Teuton remains, the emblem of possession.

Certain facts, however, seem authenticated in the life of this remarkable woman. She was born, it appears, about the year 453, very shortly after the landing of the English in Kent. Her father was one of the petty princes of Ulster. During that century, Ireland was converted to Christianity by the preaching of the Scottish-born Patrick, who requited a youth of slavery in pagan Ireland by a life of strenuous mission work in that country. In the transition time Bride was born, and as a child threw her whole heart into the new faith; it is said she was but 14 when she took the monastic vow — for already the corrosion of asceticism was eating into Continental Christianity, and was borrowed into the Celtic faith. Yet one cannot imagine that it was by austerity and seclusion that the girl won so complete an ascendancy over her own people, and moreover made her name a lamp of light throughout Western Europe. "Bridget" means, it will be remembered, the Bright Shining One. Rather let us suppose Bride a winsome leader, a tireless toiler in the vineyard, replete with all that unaging charm that still renders the women of her country the most enduringly fascinating women on earth. That fervent oratory, that winning address, that personal magnetism must have been hers in fullest measure, backed up by a power of organisation at least as great as that of Hilda of Whit by. No less than four religious houses for women were founded by her, the earliest of these, the famous Kil-Dara, or Kildare, being the first of its kind in Ireland. Here, as in the others, Bride must have wrought hard as teacher, leader, expounder of all good and gentle crafts and manners of living. Well did she succeed among the wild clan-folk, for in succeeding years, when Ireland, uplifted, among nations in her golden age of fervid faith and peaceful learning, was the Insula Sacra of the west, Bride was counted, with; Patrick and Columba, one of the three supreme saints of the Sacred Isle. Moreover, if Bride visited a little of the shrines called by her name in England, Scotland, and the Continent, she must have been a famous traveller. Unfortunately, her most famous English shrine, St. Bride's Well, of Fleet street, was degraded into a women's prison during Tudor times; hence "bridewell," a female reformatory. In Galloway her name remained long as the adopted saint of the fierce Douglases, kings of Galloway. One of the small islands of the Hebrides was called Brigidiani after her, and she had yet another famous shrine at Abernethi, said to be the old Pictish capital of the Highlands. Here relics of her were displayed after her death; Ireland was not permitted to retain the ashes of this her most famous daughter; the head of Saint Bride was said to be kept in the chapel of the Jesuits at Lisbon. Giraldus Gambriensis asserts, however, that up to 1185 her body lay in a vault at Dourepatrick, also the last resting place of Saint Patrick himself. Her death, after about 70 years of strenuous labour, took place in 523, about the time when Arthur was fighting his 12 battles.

The miracles attributed to her made her special shrine of Kildare famous for many centuries; there also burned her sacred fire, which was only put out so late as 1220. These signs, however, are now known to be the transferred remains of the heathen cult of Ceredwen, the Celtic Ceres, whose shrine was at Kildare. Moreover, Fiona Macleod infers, doubtless on authority, that there may have been some confusion between the attributes of Bridget and those of Brighid, a kind of Gaelic muse invoked in Druidic times.

In view of the strenuous, noble, selfless life which alone could have left such lasting and apostolic; warfare against heathenism, it is difficult to listen with patience to the puerilities manufactured about her by priestly miracle-mongers in after days. One homely tradition, indeed, gives her the very earthly credit, of obtaining from Saint Patrick, on behalf of her sex, the privilege of proposing in Leap Year! Nor does it neglect to add that she followed up the concession by an immediate offer of her own hand, which Patrick dutifully declined.

But the love of the Celtic heart, and fertility of the Celtic imagination invested Bride of Kildare with every grace and power of supreme sainthood, and did not hesitate to sweep away the bonds of time and space to hail her as the foster mother of Christ in Bethlehem. Some 10 years ago Fiona Macleod embodied these floating myths in a strange fantasy, dreamy, quaint, and tender, called "Mary of the Gael."' In it she tells how Brighid, herself a creature of miraculous and holy birth, was reared by her reputed father in exile at Iona, than a Druid sanctuary, and how she beheld beforehand in a crystal pool the figure of the Virgin Mary. As in a kaleidoscope, the scene shifts and shimmers, now in Scotland, now in Palestine; and so it chances that Brighid, alone of humankind, succours the wandering Joseph and Mary, and takes in her aims the new-born King, wrapped in her own mantle; which action gave her one of her Scottish titles, Brighid of the Mantle. In that supreme hour the old Druidic High Priest of Iona was granted sight of the new-born Saviour in the arms of Brighid, and fell dead in an ecstacy, calling to his acolytes, 

Bridget Bride upon her knee, 

The king of the elements asleep upon her breast!

These legends might be multiplied ad infinitum; but enough has been said to show the real ascendancy of Bride of Kildare in the Irish Golden Age, itself one of the veritable romances of history. And if her own appointed festival, the first of February, is now a holy day to few or none outside her own country, we Scottish Gaels do not well utterly to forget a woman of our race whose life was undoubtedly a beacon lamp in a dark and stormy world.

SWEET SAINT BRIDE Otago Witness, Issue 2662, 22 March 1905.

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Saint Brigid, 'type, ideal, and model of Irish maidens'

In 2024 Saint Brigid has been reinvented as a feminist icon, champion of the struggle against the patriarchy. One hundred years ago Saint Brigid's meaning for women was very different, at least in the view of the anonymous author below in this piece from 1921, published in The New Zealand Tablet. The press in countries with large Irish immigrant populations often syndicated articles like this, so I would be interested to know who wrote this particular one and when and where it was first published.  The writer sees Saint Brigid as being uniquely placed, thanks to the providence of God,  to bring 'the faith of Saint Patrick' to the women of Ireland. Whilst we find the usual racially-based speculations on the 'Celtic' mind, soul and personality, it is the significance of Saint Brigid for women which is this author's main concern. And as the concluding paragraph shows, our patroness upholds the traditional nurturing role of women within the domestic sphere for she 'was home-loving and home-like', 'the type, ideal, and model of Irish maidens and of Irish mothers. She is the queen of the Irish home'. I do though appreciate the author's contention that part of the attraction of Saint Brigid (or Bridh as she is called here) is the homely quality which makes her accessible and approachable. 'She was, a saint who is still all the more a saint because ever and always she is one of ourselves'.

ST. BRIGID

In carrying out His wise Providence in the world, God chooses fit instruments for His work. Hence, in order to plant the faith of St. Patrick deep in the hearts of the woman of Ireland, and in order through them to make it live with perennial bloom and sweet fruitfulness within our Irish homes, God raised up a saint whose special natural and supernatural characteristics gave her a special power to charm the Celtic mind and to fascinate the Celtic soul. We may pause for some short moments to contemplate what these characteristics were.

First of all, she was a great saint, and, therefore, her holy soul was in immediate, intense, and constant union with God. But this union had special personal aspects of its own. The Four Masters write of her: "Brigid was she who never turned her mind or attention from the Lord for the space of one hour, but was constantly meditating and thinking of Him in her heart and mind."

On her long and frequent journeys, in all her work, whether in her convent home or in the fields or forests or amongst friends or strangers, amidst the many, various and incessant occupations which seemed to absorb all her hours by day and often even by night, the conscious sense of the Great Presence never left her. God was ever and always visible to her soul. God spoke to her not only through the mysterious splendour and spiritual loveliness of Revelation, but, as to the great St. Francis of Assisi, so also through the sights and sounds of Nature, through its melodious messages and speaking images, through its meaning and its music, did the Divine Spirit, in a simple, yet mysterious way, appeal to the soul of St. Bride.

The mountains, the meadows, the forests, the fields, the song of the rippling river, or the chorus of the foaming cataract —the hymns of the birds or the prayerfulness of the pine woods, the rising or the setting sun, the moon, the stars—all Nature taught her lessons, and lifted up her love to God. To her music was in a strange, true, real sense a Divine language. Thus, one day, when many friends and strangers, chiefs and nobles, men and women, priests and nuns were gathered together, in the great hall of a king, wishing to express in a language understood by all the holy thoughts and sacred emotions which she would impart to all, she bade some young men in the company to take the harps that hung around the walls and play. Whereat the young men answered that they were quite ignorant of the art. Thereupon St. Bridh with her finger-tips touched their fingers, and again bade them play. As their hands, miraculously guided, swept across the strings such rapturous strains woke the enchanted air that all were hushed in awe and in delight, for it seemed to all that the gates of Paradise had been flung open to let flood forth the Divine music of the angels. She said herself that she could follow the Masses celebrated in far-off lands, and that the song and music of distant churches was often wafted by Divine power to vibrate within her ear and elevate her soul to loving rapture.

Another characteristic of St. Bridh was her bright and radiant joyfulness. The joy of the Holy Spirit which dwelt within her soul lighted up her countenance with holy attractiveness and gave to her every word of charm that won persuasion and a power that infused its own clearness and its own vigor into the listener's mind. In her very presence there was a simple yet queen-like winningness which charmed while it commanded reverence, and the calm, sweet dignity of her manner brought a smile to the face, conviction to the mind, and devotedness to the heart. Thus was she well fitted to secure the loyalty of a race which has always been fiercely impatient of force or frown, but which by reason of natural gladness, wit, and humor sparkling within its natural temperament may easily be controlled by a frank smile, disarmed by a kind word and conquered by the proffered hand of true friendship.

To this last characteristic we must add another. It is her homeliness. She is no stern ascetic, before whom we bow indeed in wondering worship, but from whom we instinctively feel that we are. all the more far apart. Nor is she like some great lady, who may be herself a great saint, prayerful, mortified, zealous, detached, but who is always so great as to seem to have but little human sympathy, and with whom we could never really feel at home. No! no! St. Bridh is our own sweet Bridh. In all her ways and works she was home-loving and home-like. She was, a saint who is still all the more a saint because ever and always she is one of ourselves.

She loved the poor, the sad, and the suffering. While she did great work, her greatest work was in the homes of the people. Let me give one instance. A farmer came to her in great distress. His wife, his sons and daughters were all sick unto death. He was himself barely able to speak. His farm was quite neglected, and he could find no help. At once our own Bridh called some of her nuns and went straight to the man's home. They nursed the sick, who were soon miraculously restored to robust health. They tidied the house and looked after the housekeeping. They tended the flocks in the pasture land. They toiled in the tillage field; and they milked the cows. "Who shall find a valiant woman? She hath looked well to the paths of her house." St. Bridh is the type, ideal, and model of Irish maidens and of Irish mothers. She is the queen of the Irish home. Can any woman have a nobler part in life to aim at or to accomplish than to be like St. Bridh, "the Mary of the Gael"?

ST. BRIGID,New Zealand Tablet, 10 March 1921

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Great Life Work of Saint Brigid

A handsome tribute to the legacy of Saint Brigid and to her famous foundation at Kildare from the pen of Bishop Thomas Joseph Shahan, rector of the Catholic University of America. Bishop Shahan was born in 1857 to a family who had emigrated to America from Killarney in the late 1840s. It is obvious from his article, syndicated in the New Zealand press, that he retained a deep awareness of his Irish roots and he takes a high view not only of Ireland's most famous female saint but of Irish womanhood in general. We also see the influence of racial theories which ascribed 'a natural racial mysticism' to the Gael. This piece was published in 1917 when such views were commonplace, but the idea of the dreamy, innately spiritual Gael, who has a special awareness of the thin barrier separating this world and the next, never did go away completely and resurfaced in the "Celtic Christianity" movement of recent decades:

“After St. Patrick,” says Bishop Shahan, of the Catholic University, “it is a woman, St. Brigid, who has done more than any one else to fashion the life of medieval Ireland. Throughout all the Middle Ages, the Abbess of Kildare is one of the great powers of Ireland, for she represents Brigid, just as the Archbishop of Armagh represents St. Patrick. The art of Ireland is largely an outgrowth from Kildare, and that glorious old abbey was for ages a centre of humanity and charity, as well as a refuge of virtue and genius. There was no more awful public crime than the violation of this national sanctuary, more venerable than ever were Dodona and Ephesus, and it may be said without fear of contradiction that this old monastery of Kildare, which was already venerable when Charlemagne began to reign, has done more for the elevation of women and the formation of a Christian public opinion in her regard than any other similar institution of the Middle Ages. So great was the medieval Irish veneration for this holy place that when the bishops of Ireland assembled in council they placed the Abbess of Kildare on a throne higher than their own, as a token of respect for Brigid, who had been the counsellor of the bishops of Ireland while she lived. 

Across the pages of all the Irish annals, from St. Patrick to the Reformation, there moves a long procession of grave and virtuous daughters of Erin, and we feel instinctively that they were the salt of the earth and the light thereof in many a century of blind and endless warfare, and we cease to wonder at the millions of pure and lovely women whom Ireland has bestowed with generous hand upon the peoples of the New World, to be the mothers of a spiritually minded race, and to preserve forever that lovely Christian idea of the highest womanhood, in which innocence and beauty are only the visible workings of refined religious hearts, and in which a natural racial mysticism blossoms out into the purest love of, God and the most intense personal relationship with that other world which is above and beyond coarse, perishable matter, and in which the Gael has never ceased to live, by his imagination and his desires.

”GREAT LIFE WORK OF ST. BRIGID, New Zealand Tablet, 27 September 1917

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