Last year to mark the feast of Saint Brigid I posted a 1929 account of a pilgrimage to the church of Killester, in Dublin, which had received a relic of the saint from Lumiar in Portugal. That occasion was an impressive one but five years later another pilgrimage, this time to the saint's reputed birthplace at Faughart, County Louth, surpassed it. The highest dignitaries from church and state joined thousands of pilgrims from all over Ireland in praise of of 'that peerless Irishwoman, Mary of the Gael'. I noted some charming details included in this newspaper report of the occasion. First, the six young girls, all called Brigid and all of whom live in the parish, who form the guard of honour around the reliquary of the saint. Then there was a reminder of the part once played by confraternities and sodalities in Irish Catholic life and the sound of the rosary echoing through the countryside. Whilst the hope was expressed in 1934 that Saint Brigid's Day would be 'raised to the dignity of a holy day', in 2025 it is now a public holiday, but in many places the gatherings are to celebrate a feminist goddess rather than the Mary of the Gael. One sign of hope, however, is that the same modern scholars who tell us that the association of Faughart with Saint Brigid is based on a confusion between the County Louth place and the Leinster people to whom she belonged, the Fothairt, have begun to question the goddess and to
rediscover the Mary of the Gael. Wishing everyone the blessing of the
Feast!
Adest dies leticie
quo sancta virgo Brigida
de tenebris miserie
transit ad regna lucida.
MARY OF THE GAEL
Ireland's Homage,
HUGE NATIONAL PILGRIMAGE TO BIRTHPLACE.
Remarkable scenes of piety and devotion were witnessed at the Shrine of St. Brigid at Faughart, a few miles from Dundalk, on Sunday afternoon, July 1, when thousands of pilgrims from all parts of Ireland took part in the first national pilgrimage to the scene of the Saint's childhood days. Church and State took a prominent part in the magnificent scene of splendour, and the pilgrimage was generally regarded as one that from every aspect would be difficult to equal.
His Eminence Cardinal MacRory, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, who took part in the ceremonies, was deeply affected by the intensity and beauty of the people's fervour. The Irish people are hopeful that the wonderful success attending the pilgrimage will be that St. Brigid's feast day will be raised to the dignity of a holy day.
The people of Dundalk made special efforts to beautify their town in honour of the saint. Pilgrims passed through streets brightened by a display of Papal and Eucharistic Congress flag and bunting, reminiscent of Dublin in June, 1932.
Special trains from Dublin, Belfast, Cavan, and a large number of omnibuses carried thousands to the town, and the five miles' route to Faughart presented a never-to-be-forgotten spectacle.
Faughart lies to the north of Dundalk, and after leaving the main road a country lane runs for nearly three miles to the hillside where the Saint was born. The pilgrims, old and young, made light of the tiring conditions as they tramped in the warm sunshine through clouds of dust raised by passing 'buses and motor cars. They found shelter beside the simple shrine, for many towering trees cast welcome shade.
Reliquary of Saint.
The procession, which was of striking proportions, walked a mile and a half from Kilcurry. The place of honour in the procession was occupied by the gold casket, containing a Reliquary of the Saint, placed on a pure white lorry. Six girls, each bearing the Christian name Brigid, sat on the lorry and acted as a guard of honour. They live in the parish.
President de Valera, who was accompanied by Mr. P. J. Little, T.D., his Parliamentary Secretary, and Mr. Sean T. O 'Kelly, with Mr. W. T. Cosgrave, T.D., leader of the Opposition, were in the procession, a feature of which was the particularly large number of children who took part. The United Confraternities in the robes of their Order showed their veneration for the saint by attending in their hundreds, while there was also a very strong representation of the men's and women's sodalities and boy scouts and girl guides, a very large number of whom were from Dublin.
Members of the Dublin Corporation, headed by the Lord Mayor, Ald. Byrne, T.D., wearing their robes, made a striking picture, while there were also present members of the Louth County Council and Dundalk Urban Commissioners. Several bands from Dublin, Belfast, Dundalk, Carlingford and Drogheda played hymns on the way to the shrine.
Mr. de Valera and the other members of the Dail occupied seats close to the shrine. After the reliquary had been placed in front of the shrine, Father Corey, C.C., Knockbridge, said the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin, and the huge throng assembled on the hillside made the countryside ring with the responses.
Ireland's Greatest Daughter.
Father Antonine, O.F.M., Guardian, Franciscans, Waterford, in an oration, said it was a great gathering, but were it ten times greater, it would still be unworthy of that peerless Irishwoman, Mary of the Gael.
Regretfully they must admit there were shrines in countries outside of Ireland where she was better known and received more homage from her devoted clients than in the land of her birth, her life-work, and her holy death.
Almost l500 years had rolled by since that day when the greatest Irishwoman of all time saw the light of day amid those hills. Her father was the chieftain Dubthach, a pagan. His castle had disappeared.
Born in Poverty.
It was in no stately dwelling their saint was born, but in a poor hut of wattles and mud — poor as the cave that was tho first shelter of her Lord and only love. For though her father was noble, his wife was not her mother. That great honour belongs to Brocessa, a Christian, and a slave in the household of her father. Her poverty and her lowly state, which were such a stigma in the eyes of men, were no bar to the favours of heaven.
At times the blood of princes which she inherited from her father would come uppermost. Her bearing was as regal as that of any princess, especially in her charity. An unheard of thing in any bondswoman she never refused an alms, especially if asked in the name of her God. Regally munificent also were her gifts — at times, it would be a sheep from the flock; at others food from her father's own larder.
From Bondage to Liberty.
Her charity and the implacable hatred of her father's wife were used by God as the means whereby she would receive her manumission. Goaded by these, her father decided to sell her as a slave to his overlord, the King of Leinster. When she stood before the latter her father dilated on her prodigal open-handedness, but the King was a Christian, and God gave him to understand that the child was favoured and forthwith gave her her liberty. 'Leave her alone,' he said to Dubthach, 'for her merit before God is greater than ours. And thus the slave girl passed from the galling ties of bondage to liberty. She returned with her father to his fortress in holy Faughart, no longer his slave but his daughter.
Then came the great moment in her life— the choice between the world and the cloister. Long before, Brigid had given her heart to God, but she had not yet dedicated to Him her life in taking the veil. On her return to Faughart her father chose for her future husband a man of the high and honoured rank of tho Bards.
Brigid's Prayer.
Such a match would exalt his daughter and one-time slave, and at the same time strengthen his own position as chieftain. But Brigid thought otherwise; none less had she chosen for her spouse than the King of Heaven and Earth. She was beautiful—none so lovely as she in the whole of her father's territory— she had charm and grace. How [could she] resist the appeals of her father without at the same time offending him?
She had recourse to her infallible remedy. Kneeling perhaps on that very spot on which some were standing that day, she besought God that he would take from her the beauty of her body in order that she might preserve unto Him the beauty f her soul. The miracle happened. Her lovely face lost its beauty and charm, and she became plain and homely to look upon. And when her prospective lover rode over with his retinue to her father's fortress, seeing her he felt repelled, and having upbraided her father for an intended imposture, he hastily turned his horses and rode straight away home again.
Receives the Veil.
Her great decision taken, Faughart knew her no more. If they desired to follow the course of her life they must seek her at Ushna, Westmeath. There she received the veil of her consecration from the hands of St Maccaille, at Ardagh, County Longford where she established her convent at the bidding of St. Mel; on the roads of Ulster. Leinster, Munster, Connaught and Meath, where, like her great co-Apostle St. Patrick, a great part of her life was spent in missionary labours, or in her opere magno, the great double monastery of Kildare, where she lived and died.
In these places they saw in her maturity a sage, a counsellor to Bishops, Abbots and Princes, a worker of miracles, a saint hewing wood and performing menial services.
Cloistered Life Instituted.
Catholic Press, Thursday 30 August 1934, page 11.
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