The Pagan Roots of Saint Brigid of Kildare - Goddess, Saint or Both? by Ana Redondo

How does a woman become a venerated symbol in early Christian Ireland? How does she become a legend through mythmaking and miracles? Who was the real St Brigid and how much is she the Celtic goddess of the same name in spirit? In Ireland, St Brigid’s day, the Pagan holiday of Imbolc, hundreds of people celebrate the coming end of winter. It was finally made a national holiday in 2023. This is typically marked with woven crosses and dolls made from reeds or straw on the eve of St Brigid’s day. It is said that they provided protection to the household from fire and to protect and bless the cattle. This folk history had been forged in thousands of generations previous. From pagan Celtic goddess to Catholic saint, the name Brigid holds the key to important interactions between Celtic belief and emerging catholic power. It holds the power of memory and remembrance in the veneration of women figures in mythology and society. In early Celtic Irish Law, women appear to have had little to no legal independence and little power. It is made clear by both Irish and Welsh laws that a woman’s legal status was defined by the men in their families. The most important Irish women were abbesses of monasteries, able to govern some power in these spheres. This is where Brigit of Kildare is largely known. These early laws do present that women could own and control property, although restricted. I shall now stitch together the history of the figure of St Brigid of Kildare and her relations to the Pagan goddess of the same name.

We come to know about the life of Brigid of Kildare through a number of sources, including a Latin version of her life, ‘Vita Brigitae’ by Cogitosus, from 7th century AD. In the first section, ‘Irish Life of Brigit’ or the ‘Bethu Brigate’, she is presented to be living within the same time as Saint Patrick who lived in Fifth century AD. It is therefore largely suggested she lived from 5th-6th Century and the monastery that she founded dated to 490 AD, according to sources and legend. Much of her life is shrouded in a mixture of myth and mystery, said to have been born to a druid household. It is said that she was born in 450, a tumultuous time as the Roman Empire had collapsed. An early Christianity was being spread across Celtic Ireland by the Saint Patrick twenty years earlier. According to the Cogitosus text, the myth reports that she could only stomach the milk from a specific white, red-eared cow, milked by a virgin. This cow was steeped in mythic tradition as a sign of the otherworld. It is reported that three Christian clergyman came to the druid in his dreams, that he must name the girl Brigid inspired by the goddess of the same name. Already, we are seeing in these sources an agenda, a desire to combine tradition to make it easier for Pagan celts in Ireland to warm to Christian belief. Fire is an important aspect of the mythology of Brigid. It was said in this text that her relatives saw a fire rising from the house where the child Brigid and her mother were sleeping. This was presented to be a fire that did not burn the house down, much alike Moses in the Old Testament. When the Normans arrived in Kildare in 12th Century, they found a fire that was constantly burning in the saint’s shrine there. When it came time for her to wed, Brigid refused and pledged a life to God. A ninth-century text suggests that her brothers, expecting a hefty bride-price, told her, “The beautiful eye that is in your head will be betrothed to a man, though you like it or not.” Brigid gouged out her eye and said, “Here is that beautiful eye for you.” According to a 12th Century source, the holy woman asked the King of Leinster for land in which to build her church on. He refused, mocking her, promising whatever her cloak could cover. As the story goes, Brigid’s cloak covered the hill and stretched over to the dale. It is presented that the abbey in which she built housed both monks and nuns, living in parallel. Cogitosus describes Kildare as a ‘vast metropolitan city’ due to the church, bringing in pilgrims from all over the country. Although we must accept that this is likely an exaggeration, it is nevertheless important for showing the impact of Saint Brigid on her environment. In fact, early Irish law recognises the abbess of Kildare as able to ‘turn back the streams of war.’ It is evident that Kildare itself was a centre of information, with high evidence of the production of scribal texts. The male wing of the Kildare church seemed to dissipate in 10th century, which made the abbess even more powerful as bishops in 1152 reaffirmed male authority in the church. St Patrick found the impact of young individual alike her fascinating, as he writes in his confessions, ‘see now in Ireland, there has been lately formed a people of the lord… sons and daughters of the Irish Chieftains are seen to become monks and nuns.’ Since then, St Brigid had become a figure for nuns alike to follow, a figurehead. A powerful woman in the church. The imagery and mythology of the woman Brigid inspires a sense of boundary crossing, in all of her miracles and her presence at that specific crossover during Ireland’s religious history. This is something that she shared with the cult of the Pagan goddess Brigid, both highly associated with a holy fire and prophecy, as well as cattle. The accounts of her birth directly associate her with Celtic Paganism. A link is created in the folk history of two figureheads, goddess and saint.

The goddess Brigid is perhaps one of the most celebrated and worshipped across the world in present day, but in ancient Ireland, she is celebrated as a daughter of the Dagdha, important in Pagan tradition. The name Brigid was a title, more than a name, meaning ‘exalted one’, which already emphasises this figure’s influence on society in ancient Ireland. She was both a single and triple goddess, with roles and cults related to poetry, crafts, weaving, medical work and divination. Inscriptions to the goddess transcend Ireland, found in East Gaul, relating to devotion to the goddess as a healer. The root of the word ‘Brig’ gave rise to the name Brigantia, sometimes thought to be the same deity. Scholars associated the link between Brigid and Brigantia who was the tribal protector of the Brigantes in North England. She was celebrated as a bringer of prosperity. In fact, iconography demonstrates a link between Brigantia and the Roman goddesses Victory and Minerva. There are seven known inscriptions to Brigantia, referred to as the ‘dea Victoria’ which could reflect her tribal function as a tribal protector. A 12th century text ‘Book of Invasions of Ireland’ mentions Brigid as a goddess, ‘she had Fe and Men, the two royal oxen, from whom Femen is named. She had Triath, king of her boars, from whom Treithirne is named. With them were, and were heard, the three demoniac shouts after rapine in Ireland, whistling and weeping and lamentation. She had Cirb, king of the wethers, from whom Mag Cirb is named.’ This association with kinship, ruling all these kings is interesting, as is the association with boars. In Celtic tradition, boars were symbolic of warriors and aggression and so, associating this with a female goddess defies all expectation. Brigid was known as a fertility spirit and therefore, one of the most important to those who lived on the land. In the myth of the Battle of Magh Tuiredh, which describes the great conflict over the possession of Ireland between the Tuatha De Danann tribe and their demon foes the Fomorians. Brigid’s role in these folk stories is mediator, peace maker. The Goddess's legacy is evident in a collection of artefacts found at Knockbride (Hill of Bride) in County Cavan. The famous triple Corleck Head, conserved by the National Museum in Dublin, shows a bust of heads, one of which at the top is said to be Brigid (the goddess). This is a tradition of warrior queens, tribal leaders and mediators later translated into the Christian tradition with Saint Brigid. This is a story of power and influence. The influence of Pagan beliefs and culture on the new Christian faith in Ireland at the time. The image of the pious, generous provider of Saint Brigid is indistinguishable from her pagan goddess form. Her life is a chronicle of her family’s distaste in her constant generosity of precious items belonging to her father, as the myth reports. This gift-giving theme was wholly pagan in its origin, her miraculous ability to cause abundance and fertility. Valuable gifts and weapons in Pagan society were shared amongst noble families as an exchange of wealth. The cattle association connecting the two figures’ manifests in the Christian history as possessing the power to increase milk produce in the abbey. These miracles link with Christ’s own tradition of water into wine. These shared traditions argue strongly for a pagan origin to a catholic saint. Both figures represent knowledge exchange, a meeting and merging of two faiths and histories. A great goddess and a great saint, both women, becoming figureheads of the identity of Ireland. In folk history, until today, both are celebrated on the first of February. Saint Brigid serves as a reminder that despite the erasure of female figures in religion and history overall, there lies underneath a complex, vivid history of cases of women taking up spaces of power. She is a beacon of hope, a symbol of Ireland and the strength of the people. Whether the story has become mythology and fantasy, it nevertheless shows a presence of a female leader of a Christian tradition that carries the weight of the influence of Pagan religion and history. This may be a factor that the Church had wished to erase through time. She is a representation of the history of religious colonisation and merging of traditions in order to encourage native people to follow this new society. Saint Brigid of Kildare, an owner of property that became a religious institution, where women held power and influence.