St. Brigid: Ireland’s spiritual mother faces secular reinterpretation

Dublin, Ireland, Feb 1, 2025 /
05:00 am

In Ireland, Feb. 1 marks the beginning of spring and the celebration of “Lá Fhéile Bríde” — St. Brigid’s Day. For Irish Catholics, the day has always been significant, as St. Brigid is one of Ireland’s three patron saints alongside St. Patrick and St. Colmcille.

Since 2023, the feast day has been a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland, branded by the Irish government as “St. Brigid’s Day/Imbolc bank holiday.” (Imbolc was a pagan festival that marked the arrival of spring.) The day has been used to promote the successes of Irish women and generated a variety of celebrations of St. Brigid, typically reimagined as a pre-Christian goddess.

In a Jan. 30 statement, government minister Patrick O’Donovan encouraged members of the public to participate in a series of events, omitting any reference to Christianity or Catholicism. 

It is not uncommon of the Irish government to diminish the faith today, but the secular appropriation of the story of St. Brigid has caused some reaction.

The government information pointedly ignores the Christian St. Brigid, asserting: “With roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc, which marked the arrival of spring, St. Brigid’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate growth, renewal, and light. In Celtic mythology, Brigid was a triple goddess — of healing, fire, and of poetry.”

Catholic commentator Father Owen O’Gorman told CNA: “It’s a real problem with the secularization of the feast days; it’s not just St. Brigid — St. Patrick’s Day has obviously become quite secularized. The onus is then on the Church to enable people to connect with the real St. Patrick rather than the plastic St. Patrick.”

Highlighting the importance of St. Brigid, O’Gorman drew a parallel with Sister Clare Crockett, an Irish religious sister who he says walked in the steps of St. Brigid. 

“We often talk about founding fathers of a nation or church — St. Brigid is our founding mother. When we look at Sister Clare, whose [cause for canonization] has just been opened in Spain, she re-proposes St. Brigid’s life to a new generation, a young generation of women who have been through a secular culture. Sister Clare herself was immersed in that culture for so long and found it difficult to extract her heart from it.”

O’Gorman continued: “There is a very positive message of spiritual motherhood. St. Brigid is the spiritual mother of our nation; we honor her by praying through her intercession by spreading the cult of St. Brigid, her devotion, imitating her virtues, her spirit of hospitality, her spirit of generosity, and her love of Christ. If we consider Clare Crockett, I believe she will be another great figure for the people of Ireland and women of Ireland, but also internationally. Already we can see the connection with her among a younger generation.”

Sinéad Strong is founder of Catholic Mothers Ireland, an organization that has drawn upon the life and example of St. Brigid as a source of strength. The group’s events have included a St. Brigid’s Day Mass for the parents of miscarried and stillborn babies.

“What draws me to St. Brigid is her simplicity, her service to the poor, sick, and elderly,” Strong told CNA. “One of her patronages is newborn babies, which is important to me as a mother of seven children. It was a blessing to call on her intercession on her feast day for those suffering having lost their babies.”

O’Gorman pointed to the origin of St. Brigid’s eponymous cross as an example the saint’s evangelization and empathy toward others. He explained how Brigid made a cross out of reeds as a tool for evangelization and for the salvation of a dying pagan chieftain. 

“It was her simple tool that led to the conversion of a dying man,” he said.

Every year Catholic Mothers Ireland brings together mothers and children to learn how to make St. Brigid’s crosses, which are then blessed by a priest on the feast day.

“I am always struck by the enthusiasm of the children in learning this beautiful tradition and listening to the stories of St. Brigid and also how the older children take the time to help the younger children,” Strong said.

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Strong sees St. Brigid as a role model for Catholic mothers striving every day to pass on their faith, traditions, and Irish heritage in a world that is trying to extinguish it. 

“It is particularly impressive — given the state’s attack on motherhood as well as the continued attack on our faith — to see Catholic mothers’ strength of will and great virtue in going against the flow of society.”

Strong said she believes that attempts to recast St. Brigid as a New Age Celtic pagan goddess “is a blatant attempt to diminish the strong faith once held in this country.”

“It is yet another festival to bring Ireland back to its pagan ways. The goddess they celebrate is not St. Brigid,” she said.

Christine O’Hara is a teacher in Colaiste Chriost Rí in Cork. She has on prominent display in her classroom a quotation attributed to St. Brigid: “Christ dwells in every creature.” 

O’Hara told CNA that for her the saint is a forbearer of St. Teresa of Calcutta, who herself spent time as a religious in Ireland. “St. Brigid said to find Christ in the poor, to feed the hungry, and clothe the naked — that is my work.”

O’Hara pointed to St. Brigid’s work as founder of her abbey in Kildare and her place in breaking traditional roles in monastic life in Ireland as joint leader of a religious community. “She was concerned about the poor; her compassion and her hospitality really stood out as the faith spread,” she said.

Father John Twohig from Cork points to the story of St. Brigid’s cloak and its parallel in the Gospel. “St. Brigid’s cloak spread so far when she asked for land to build her convent, and [she] was told she could have as much as her cloak covered,” Twohig explained. “You know it was a small cloak, but it miraculously spread over a vast quantity of land.”

Armagh Auxiliary Bishop Michael Router has drawn a clear parallel between the lessons of the current era and the times in which St. Brigid lived, writing in the current edition of the Irish bishops’ newsletter, Intercom, that “there is no doubt that Brigid was a woman of strength, courage, and deep faith who was so impressive and strong that she acquired the authority and breath of influence that was almost unheard of for a woman at that time.”

“She gained that authority and influence because of her fearlessness and her willingness to champion the cause of those who had no voice and to tackle the injustices that existed in the society in which she lived. The example of St. Brigid highlights the need for the resurgence today of a spirituality and faith based on love and compassion in a world that is so self-centered and materialistic.”