Santa Brigida
We have Saint Brigid to thank for today’s Bank Holiday! This year marks the 1500th anniversary of her death.
It’s lovely to see the revival in interest in old customs and traditions. The unique St Brigid’s Cross, made from rushes, has regained enormous popularity and are instantly recognisable as relating to Brigid.
The well known Wexford folklorist Michael Fortune has some lovely postings about making the crosses on his Facebook page. Here’s one example of a cross made by his enterprising daughters:
Over 3,000 secondary school students, from counties Kildare, Carlow and Laois created a human St Brigid’s Cross formation on the Curragh to mark the 1500th anniversary. Here’s a stunning aerial shot from local photographer Mark McGuire.
I think most families in Ireland have a Brigid somewhere in the family tree and my lovely grandmother was Brigid Kelly of Little Barrack Street and so we all have a soft spot for St Brigid who performed wondrous deeds, often kind natured domestic miracles. On a trip to Italy in 2019 I was inspired by some reading I was doing about the amazing impact of Irish saints in Europe and I took off one day in search of the village of Santa Brigida which is located north east of Florence. A lady called Margaret Stokes wrote a book in the 19th century ‘ Six Months in the Apennines: Or a Pilgrimage in Search of Vestiges of The Irish Saints of Italy’. It’s a labour of love and a detective story of sorts as she researches the reach of the wandering Irish Perigrini. Fascinating to think of monks from Inis Cealtra on Lough Derg, making their way in the 6th and 7th century across Europe. Brigid was among them and one version of her life story is that she lived her remaining years out in the beautiful and rugged hills above Fiesole. She found a cave there high in the mountains which were haunted by wild beasts. It was here she spend her last years fasting and in prayer. She was often visited in her hermitage by local peasants, knights and holy matrons. She was venerated as a saint by the local population who built a church above the cave and the tiny village of Santa Brigida grew up around it. I was delighted to find it and make that connection again with Ireland as was made by Margaret Stokes all those years ago.
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