St Brigid of Kildare Moves to celebrate St Brigid as a Celtic goddess, following reports a new national holiday will be celebrated in the saint’s name, have been described as “nonsense”.
The founder of a monastery at the saint’s birthplace, Sr Briege O’Hare, a Poor Clare sister based in Faughart, Co. Louth, said “St Brigid is no goddess”.
“She is saint of the Kingdom of Heaven…who was able immediately to work the miracles that were needed for us to be able to build our monastery.”
Sr O’Hare welcomed the proposal to have a national holiday on the Monday closest to the saint’s Feast Day on February 1. “I would like to see Brigid celebrated for what she is, what every saint in the Church is – an icon of Christ,” she told The Saint Patrick Podcast in Dundalk.
Those pushing the Celtic goddess narrative were honouring a Christian saint “whether they like it or not”, Sr O’Hare added.
St Brigid was responsible for identifying one of the “greatest principles” of the Christian way of life, the idea of a soul friend or in Irish ‘anam chara’, Sr O’Hare said. “She always said no one walks the Christian path without a soul friend and it is intended that you always have another Christian a friend of your soul to reflect back to you your own truth about yourself.”
Pilgrim guide in Downpatrick, Co. Down and former BBC political correspondent Martina Purdy told The Irish Catholic that St Brigid “is an amazing figure for our times, she founded female monasticism”.
“She had a lot of status at the time, people say women have always been subjugated but St Brigid was very much her own woman and she’s a great role model,” Ms Purdy said.
“People are creating a goddess because they are channelling this need for God in another way, in a negative way in my view. It’s really twisted to say that somehow she practiced abortion, it just speaks volumes about where we are in society, her memory should be honoured and not distorted.”