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Brigid’s Day: how a festival of fire and fertility connects Christian Ireland with its pagan past

Dr Aoife Granville highlights the connections between Brigit the goddess and Brigid the saint.

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Finding Brigid: The Meta-Myth of an Irish Goddess

“Brigit, goddess of the pagan Irish, was supplanted in the Christian era by Saint Brigit, and the Irish of the Middle Ages transferred in some way to this national saint the cult that their pagan ancestors had addressed to the goddess Brigit”.

This is the first explicit identification of the pagan goddess with the christian saint; made by french Celticist, Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville in his 1884 work, ‘Le cycle mythologique irlandais’.

Little did he know, that when he made this statement, that in less than 150 years it would play a large part in getting Ireland a new National Holiday…

and seeing as *most people in Ireland (63% according to an scientific survey of some people in Ireland), believe that St Brigid is (in *some* way) a continuation of a pre-christian deity…

That must mean, Ireland has actually declared a National Holiday in honour of a Pagan Goddess… How cool is that !

…So who was the Goddess Brigid?

Although there is no historical evidence that actually proves the existence of the Christian Saint Brigid; if a cult or religion dedicated to an earlier Goddess of the same name existed in Ireland, no evidence remains of it either.

Nearly all of the characteristics, customs and rituals, that have been applied to the contemporary Goddess Brigid, come directly from the medieval hagiographies and traditions associated with the Christian saint.

While Saint Brigid does share her name with a literary mythological character (usually called Brig meaning ‘valour’, but sometimes Brigit meaning ‘high/exalted one’), there is very little evidence of any association between the two.

None of St Brigid’s many “miracles” and overtly ‘pagan’ attributes have any correlation with the Brig character in either of the two ‘mythical tales’ that she appears in (The Battle of Moytura & The Book of Invasions).

In those tales, Brig, the daughter of the Dagda, is married to Bres (the beautiful), the half Fomorian, King of the Tuatha Dé, who after being deposed, raises an army of Fomorians to take back the land by force.

Although her marriage to the King could mark her out as a symbol of sovereignty, Brig’s only personal appearance is when her son, Ruadan, is mortally wounded trying to kill Goibniu, one of Aes Dana - Gods of Skill/the Arts…

“and he (Ruadan) died in his father’s presence in the Fomorian assembly. Brig came and keened for her son. At first she shrieked, in the end she wept. Then for the first time weeping and shrieking were heard in Ireland. (Now she is the Brig who invented a whistle for signalling at night.)”

It is interesting to note that, other than being the daughter of the Dagda, the main attributes of the ‘mythological’ Brig character - such as her marriage to Bres and the death of her son - along with her idiosyncrasies - such as inventing keening & night-whistling? - rarely, if ever, appear in the contemporary descriptions of the Goddess Brigid.

The earliest extant reference to an Irish goddess named Brigid is found in the 9th-century text, ‘Sanas Cormaic’ (Cormac’s Glossary), which also refers to St Brigid; in a different entry, as a separate entity.

(The glossary also contains the earliest known reference to Imbolc but does not associate it with either of the Brigids… but more about that in the next post).

This often quoted description of the Goddess Brigid in the Sanas Cormaic is as follows…

“Brigit i.e. a poetess (ban-file), daughter of the Dagda. This is Brigit the female seer, or woman of insight (ban-éces nó ban-éicsi), i.e. Brigit the goddess (ban-dea) whom poets (filid) used to worship, for her cult was very great and very splendid. It is for this reason that they call her (the goddess) of poets (poetarum) by this title, and her sisters were Brigit the woman of leechcraft (bé-legís), and Brigit, the woman of smithcraft (bé-ngoibnechta). i.e. the goddesses (bandé) i.e. three daughters of the Dagda are they, from whose names with all Irishmen a goddess was called Brigit.”

This description of the Goddess Brigit, suggests that she is a patron of the Arts (poetry/divination, healing & smithcraft, being considered the three ‘Arts’ in ancient Ireland) as opposed to being a goddess of “home & hearth” - as seen in most contemporary descriptions.

This role as patron of the arts is emphasised by Brig/Brigit being the daughter of the Dagda who is elsewhere described as… “the son of all arts, that is a son who has all art.” Perhaps Brigid was invoked as the divine personification of the arts.

Interestingly, the passage also implies that ‘Brigid’ was a name by which all goddesses were known in Ireland. This ties in with the view of many etymologists that the word ‘Brigid’ was used as an honorific title, rather than a personal name.

The passage finishes with another, much quoted, line - “Brigit, then, breo-aigit, breo-shaigit, ‘a fiery arrow’.” - This ‘folk etymology’ for the name Brigit, although known to be wrong (as an actual etymology); is often cited as proof that the Goddess was a fire deity.

This false etymology has appeared elsewhere, when describing the Saint, as… “a fire lighting with the love of God”. However, given its context here; describing a “goddess” of the arts, I would suggest the “fiery arrow” represents, artistic inspiration - rather than marking her out as a ‘fire deity’.

Perhaps the clue to finding the pre-christian Goddess Brigid is in the actual etymology of her name.

The ultimate source of of name ‘Brigid’ (Old-Irish Brigit), is the Proto Indo-European (PIE) word ‘*bʰerǵʰ-’ meaning ‘to rise’, which gives us (PIE) *bʰr̥ǵʰént (high-lofty-hill). From this we get the Proto-Celtic word ‘*Brigantī ’ meaning ‘of the high place’ or ‘highlander’ - cognate with many place names across central & western Europe.

However, this etymology takes a leap into the divine (and into history) as, by the 1st Century CE a Celtic tribe called the ‘Brigantes’, are known to have settled in northern Britain (around the border between Scotland and England), and by the 2nd Century CE are, according to Ptolemy, located in Ireland; possibly migrating here after the Roman invasion of Britain.

Although they left no evidence of it in Ireland. . . we know from a number of inscriptions in Scotland & England that the Brigantes worshipped a goddess, known in their Celtic (Old British - Brythonic) language as Brigantia - meaning ‘high/exalted one’; who would be known in another Celtic language (Old Irish - Goidelic) as Brigit.

Although this is probably the most convincing evidence for the pre-christian goddess Brigit (and there is very little else), it is often glossed over in contemporary Irish descriptions of the Goddess.

However this might have more than a little, to do with “neopagan-nationalism” as Brigantia is sometimes *mistakenly* cited by English neopagans as the source of the later Britannia character (the neo-classical personification of Britain) - not someone the Irish ‘Druids’ are gonna pray to!
..So who is the Goddess Brigid ?

Although the Sanas Cormaic dates back to the 9th Century, It wasn’t until Whitley Stokes published the first translation of it in 1862, that the Goddess Brigid was (re)introduced into the public/academic sphere.

It should also be noted that, in the millennia between the time of its writing in the 9th Century and its translation in the 19th, there is no other, known mention of a “goddess” called Brigid in early Irish literature; and no evidence that the saint was perceived as such during that time either.

In fact, the idea that saint and goddess are the same entity can be traced back, not to antiquity, but to the Celtic revivalists of the Victorian age; when in 1884 - little over twenty years after the publication of the Sanas Cormaic - Jubainville made his now-familiar claim that began this post…

“... Brigit, goddess of the pagan Irish, was supplanted in the Christian era by Saint Brigit, and the Irish of the Middle Ages transferred in some way to this national saint the cult that their pagan ancestors had addressed to the goddess Brigit”.

The result of being seen as a continuation of Ireland’s ancient Celtic past, St Brigid became a popular subject in late 19th Century Gaelic/Celtic revivalist art & literature where her saintly virtues were applied to the modern goddess we know today.

Jubainville’s theory was also accepted and expanded upon, by Irish academics such as R. A. Macalister, who suggested that the head of a college of priestesses who honoured ‘the fire-goddess Brigid’ at Kildare was regarded as her incarnation and bore her name, ‘but one of the succession came under Christian influence, and . . . accomplished the tremendous feat of converting the pagan sanctuary into a Christian religious house’.

Outside of academic circles however, Brigid remained very much a Christian Saint in Ireland, throughout the 20th Century; the devotion to her Catholic cult reached a peak in the early 1950’s but remained strong until the 1990’s, when a series of scandals led to a huge exodus (of mainly women) away from the Catholic Church.

At the same time a counter-cultural shift in Ireland, saw the rise of its own Neo-Pagan groups/faiths; many of which, were influenced by the US based, feminist-goddess movement and the UK Wiccan faith. Both of which, already viewed the now, post-modern, saint/goddess Brigid as something of an icon.

3 decades later and Brigid’s transformation from a post-modern saint/goddess to a meta-modern Irish Goddess, is almost complete. Perhaps in another 150 years, the original 1884 statement by Jubainville could be “re-arranged/written” to quite accurately state...

“Brigit, ‘saint’ of the ‘christian’ Irish’, was supplanted in the ‘meta-modern’ era by the ‘Goddess’ Brigit, and the Irish of the ‘21st Century’ transferred in some way to this ‘pagan goddess’ the cult that their ‘christian’ ancestors had addressed to ‘Saint’ Brigit”.

La Fheile Bhride

Image: ICON by Simon Tuite

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RTÉ has announced that musician and singer Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh will join the RTÉ Radio 1 schedule on Saturday nights at 10pm, for a new show dedicated to folk music, Folk on One.


Speaking about her new show, Muireann said: ‘It's a huge privilege for me to host the new show Folk on One on RTÉ Radio 1. Folk is a very broad church, one that I am proud to be a part of. Many years as a touring musician has exposed me to folk and traditional music from around the globe and I'm excited to share these artists with the listeners and also to platform new Irish folk music. Is cúis mortais dom chomh maith go mbeidh an clár seo dhá-theangach mar go bhfuil nasc láidir idir an dteanga agus an cheoil.’


Muireann joins an unmissable weekend line-up on RTÉ Radio 1 where Saturday and Sunday nights carve out a space specifically in the schedule for music old and new, from the folk and traditional scene with Ceilí House with Kieran Hanrahan and The Rolling Wave with Aoife Nic Cormaic and South Wind Blows with Philip King, which returns to Sunday nights with a feast of music.



Philip, who also curates Other Voices, said: ‘Really delighted to be bringing the South Wind Blows back home to the heart of the Sunday night schedule and to bookend the week with music and for the head and heart broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 from beautiful West Kerry.’



Head of RTÉ Radio 1 Peter Woods said: ‘Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh is well known to our listeners as a singer and musician. She now takes on a programme in her own right, bringing her knowledge and discernment to radio. Radio1 is happy to have Muireann join Philip King, Kieran Hanrahan and Aoife Nic Cormaic, continuing the tradition of musicians and performers on our airwaves across the weekend. This music is central to what we do.'

RTÉ Radio 1

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Happy St. Patrick's Day from all of us at Cultural Roadmapp 🍀We hope you all have a lovely day and enjoy the festivities 💚