In the belly of cultural and social changes: Brigid the goddess and Brigid the saint
This long article (I warn you!) is a reflection on Brigid in her pre-Christian and Christian form; on the nature of cultural and social change in the context of religion and colonialism in Ireland.
Today is Imbolg, the astronomical midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox. Despite the fact Imbolg never happens on the 1st of February (but later during the first week of February), many contemporary pagans are celebrating it on the 1st, the date which has been established as a fixed feast day of St. Brigid. Every year, social media is full of Imbolg related posts. I guess it's a thing of convenience and after all, it's not particularly wrong to extend holiday greetings a few days before the holiday, is it now? The day of St. Brigid, Lá Fhéile Bríde, the feast day of one of the three patron saints of Ireland, became the Republic of Ireland’s latest bank holiday after years of campaigning1. This year has also seen a project dubbed Brigid 15002, a programme of events to commemorate Ireland's most famous woman. Undoubtedly, Brigid is in many ways synonymous with Ireland, with her symbols, particularly the woven St. Brigid's cross, used as an emblem of many institutions and causes.
Insult and injury
The very first notes and drafts for this article on Brigid and Imbolc were made back in February 2023. Writing them wasn't prompted simply by my passion for Irish mythology and culture, but rather as a response to a post I've seen on a prominent Facebook page dedicated to Irish medieval history. I won't grace the page with sending any traffic their way by linking it; anyone who has ever been on Facebook is probably familiar with the vortex of madness that are “history” and “archaeology” pages and groups on Facebook, most of them reveling in misinformation, pseudoscience and profound disregard and disrespect of archaeological and historical sciences.
When I stumbled upon a post on how a pre-Christian Brigid never existed, but was invented and extrapolated from a Christian saint of the same name (as opposed to the conventional idea of pagan deities being absorbed and transformed into new, Christian saints upon Christianisation), it was a puzzling perspective that I haven't encountered very often. It didn't sit right with me in several ways — as an archaeologist, as an Irishwoman observing people's relationship with Brigid in real time and finally, as a person who identifies with a loosely defined pagan spirituality that is probably best described as animism. In my everyday practice, I'm always striving to take an inclusive approach that doesn't put any one of these three aspects on a pedestal, overshadowing the others, because I believe we should all be able to talk about any historical topic without a heated lens of an either/or agenda. That's why the aforementioned Facebook post struck me as odd; the author was insistent on a one-dimensional view, rigidly claiming how St. Brigid's hagiographies prove her historicity and authenticity, not acknowledging that said hagiographies were written centuries after her alleged lifetime and how her historicity is widely regarded as debatable. It was clear from author’s rude, loaded words and tone and the way he was laughing at everyone who commented that the issue is personal to him and that the idea of anything pagan being attached to the saint he cherishes feels like a personal insult.
In this context I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across a comment on Instagram written by someone from the National Folklore Collection at the University College Dublin, explaining how a folklore collector visited a house and, upon noticing numerous St. Brigid's crosses woven from rushes, theorised on the pre-Christian origins of said cross. When he later returned to the same house, he found the owners had thrown all the crosses away, horrified that they were something other than Christian tradition. Unfortunately, I have no info on place and date for this curious encounter, but it certainly illustrates the historical continuity of discomfort and othering of Ireland's pre-Christian traditions.
It wasn't the topic of that dreaded Facebook post alone that made me upset, it was the sting of binary thinking; the sense of hopelessness when you're staring at the face of rigidity and agenda created out of someone's fear and discomfort. I couldn't help but ponder; just why would someone feel such passion to erase Brigid, to erase a part of Irish history and culture? What made this person feel such - what is the right choice of word, hate? - towards the idea that his beloved saint is more than just his saint? Where is this othering and demonising of what was on this land before Christianity coming from? I'd liken this extreme defensiveness that transforms into denial to a wounded animal perceiving a threat, cornered in an unfamiliar place, that won't back off; it will growl and foam at the mouth until the end. Digging deeper, I unfortunately noticed that this one-dimensional phobia of all things non-Christian extends outside of religious pages and blogs; as shown in this mainstream media article from The Irish Times, where the author seems to be appalled by a goddess being “more appealing to 21st-century Ireland than a powerful Christian woman”.
It is in this same light that I see a brand new paper on St. Brigid that is currently in preprint, to be published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, which tries to analyse St. Brigid's hagiographies to prove they're showing a coherent narrative that is establishing St. Brigid's historicity and lack of connection with a pre-Christian figure of the same name. I don't think anything the author has written managed to offer compelling evidence; one quote from the paper says, “the image of Brigit as a saint should take precedence over the goddess because that is where the evidence leads” (p. 23), yet in my humble opinion, none of the stylistic interpretations given prove that point. To the contrary, it appears the author has shown that the images of Brigid the saint and Brigid the goddess are both built on very little evidence and shaky foundations, heavily reinterpreted and filled in with romanticised bias. The author is of course very welcome to think otherwise and make her own conclusions and calls for a need to “reclaim” Brigid due to an alleged cultural war on Christian women.
In the context of analysing reactionary endeavours to erase Ireland's pre-Christian past, it's impossible not to notice how Christianity in Ireland has been undergoing dramatic changes for quite some time now. The Irish population, traditionally and stereotypically perceived to be very religious, shifted from peak 94.9% identifying as Catholic in the 1961 census to 69% in the 2022 census, the lowest percentage ever recorded. The reality is of course an even lower percentage because many people declare they’re Catholic on the basis of tradition, even when they haven't practiced for many years. Any “Catholic country” in this time and age is Catholic primarily in a cultural sense. In the same period between 1961-2022, the share of those who define themselves as having no religion in Ireland jumped from 0.1% to 14%. Additionally, in a 2009 Gallup Poll, 46% of adults surveyed in Ireland answered no when asked if religion was an important part of their daily life. I clearly see these trends in my daily life, observing people around me, and the trajectory is clear. In that context, perhaps the person behind that inflammatory, derogatory post on Brigid that made me think of writing this was the proverbial wounded animal, not accepting that the religion he holds so dear is undergoing certain decline and transformation, and the syncretism and pagan aspect of St. Brigid felt like adding insult to the injury. And even though I can't identify myself with such a position in the slightest, in a way I can appreciate that it's the lived experience of another person; a person with a worldview very different to my own. I may profoundly disagree, but I can't cancel someone's right to have a different worldview.
Change and flow
Today, I'm glad my initial drafts weren't turned into an article a year ago. It would have been a very, very different article, and one that I wouldn't be proud of. It would have been an angry refutation, a call-out of the Facebook page in question. One year later, in a profoundly different world ravaged by open bloodshed and disregard for human lives, my notes started taking a different shape. Silently, with a mind of their own (as words usually do!), archaeology, history and folklore slipped into a reflection on spirituality and social changes in Ireland, especially in the context of Ireland's colonial past and present. Without any doubt, I am a very different person compared to one year ago, and specifically, the last few months have been the most character-defining times in my entire life, radically transforming me as a human, woman, mother and artist, shifting my sense of acceptance and natural tendency (thanks, autism!) to be inflexible and see the world in black and white. The endless learning and unlearning of the ways of the world took me to a path of examining how deeply entrenched colonialism is in our minds, and that perspective will be reflected here and all of my writings. Another thing that was hugely influential was this winter solstice article by Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue, in which he poignantly illustrated syncretism in practice. He writes:
So ultimately, my initial overview of who and what Brigid was organically transformed into a piece of writing that is less about Brigid herself, whoever and whatever she might (have) be(en), and more of a reflection on the nature of cultural and social change in the context of religion and colonialism. Appreciation for such an organic flow of things is entrenched into every word of this piece, and in the end it took me into yet another unexpected direction, concluding this piece with an ode to Brigid and everything I feel she is embodying. But first and foremost, what exactly do we historically know and don't know about Brigid the saint and Brigid the goddess?
Brigid in written sources
As it turns out, we know pretty much nothing with certainty - the story of Brigid is the story of piecing many small bits together. Whoever starts exploring Brigid on the Internet will quickly face three recurring questions, scattered all over the place between scholarly journals, random pagan blogs, websites of various Catholic initiatives and associations, and more. First is the question of how Brigid, a pagan goddess revered among pre-Christian population of Ireland (with her many Indo-European cognates in other regions), transformed into a Christian saint, St. Brigid of Kildare, and how the two entities coexist until this day. Second, some authors will voice their skepticism over the historical existence of St. Brigid, trying to prove that she existed merely in name and was conjured by Early Christians to cancel out the well rooted veneration of an ancient goddess named Brigid. Or rather, as I'm going to demonstrate later in this article, a myriad of pre-Christian goddesses whose many qualities blended into one entity. Finally, the third is the view I laid out at the beginning of this article, that there is little proof for the existence of the goddess and how she was largely a result of the Celtic revival era which gave birth to much of modern neopaganism. The Internet sadly tends to present all the pieces of info we do have as absolutes (“she lived in… and died in…”, “she founded the abbey in Kildare in…”), which is most certainly not the case.
What we know about Brigid the saint doesn't come from her alleged time — her earliest record is a hymn, Brigit Bé Bithmaith, “Brigid ever-excellent woman”, also known as Ultan's Hymn. Its author, St. Ultan of Ardbraccan, died around the year 653, which dates his hymn to well over a hundred years after Brigid's death (which isn't a certain thing in its own right since monastic sources give us three possible dates; namely 524, 526 and 528). Her earliest two Latin hagiographies, Vita Sanctae Brigitae I and II, date to 7th-8th century and it's not quite clear which one is older. A hagiography in Old Irish, Bethu Brigte, was likely written in the 9th century. Several other hagiographies and poems appeared around this time. They all have one thing in common - they're not contemporary to St. Brigid's life and with the passage of time and no direct eye witnesses, paired with the fact that there are no preserved writings that can be attributed to St. Brigid herself, the hagiographies have to be taken with a grain of salt. In way Christian period, before saints and canonisations, hagiographies weren't history books, but an integral tool of Christianisation, filled to the brim with fantastic, pagan coloured anecdotes describing miracles and healings that would appeal to the local population that still didn't embrace the new religion. The fantastic nature of these accounts is additionally illustrated in another source, Leabhar Ard Mhacha, The Book of Armagh, from the 9th century, in which the scribe talks of a great friendship between St. Brigid and St. Patrick who had “one heart and one mind”. This is a factually impossible timeline because St. Patrick died in 461, some 10 years after St. Brigid was born.
In hagiographies, we hear that Brigid was born (in 452 or 456) near Dundalk, in the Kingdom of Ulaid, and that her father was a chieftain and her mother a slave who was christened by St. Patrick. Alternatively, her father was a druid - or her chieftain father sold her pregnant mother to a druid. Cementing her status as a liminal entity, she was born into slavery, at dawn, on the threshold of the druid's house while her mother was bringing in some milk. St. Brigid began performing miracles at an early age and many of the miracles described are quite out there — on one occasion for example, as reported by Cogitosus in Vita II, St. Brigid, through the power of her prayer and blessing, performed an abortion on a nun who broke her vow of chastity.
Sources tell us Brigid's eponymous abbey was founded around 480 in Kildare — and it's unclear whether she was actually the one to establish it, yet a myriad of articles on the Internet will repeatedly claim it was St. Brigid's personal deed. The placename Cill Dara translates as the “church of the oak”, which is often interpreted as a proof that the monastery was built over an earlier sacred place dedicated to the goddess Brigid. This is often reinforced with a widespread belief that a perpetual fire was burning at this sanctuary, continuing its existence from prehistoric times when the goddess was venerated. It is said only women could approach the sacred flames. Unfortunately, this is a little more than a popular Internet myth; it has to be noted that the one source mentioning this ritual fire is highly unreliable. Giraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald of Wales, wrote this account in the 12th century, which again brings us to the problem of the long passage of time. Gerald's book, Topographia Hibernica, a propaganda material ordered by king Henry of England, is a collection of tall tales that would have been classified as pseudohistory by today's standards, and it was the source of many harmful stereotypes of the Irish as savages who were in a dire need of civilising by their benevolent English masters. This work can thus be seen as the foundation of England's, and later Britain's, colonial attitudes that resulted in 800+ years of occupation. Knowing this, Topographia Hibernica hardly sounds like a plausible source for St. Brigid's perpetual fire; and after all, if there was a fire of such importance, how come we don't hear of it in any of Brigid's hagiographies?
Gerald's writings don't give us any proof that he had ever visited Kildare (even though he liked bragging how his sources were either first hand recollections or quotes from credible eyewitnesses), but we know for certain that he visited Killare in Co. Meath, right at the Hill of Uisneach which has been associated with Bealtaine fire rituals for probably thousands of years. Folklore has it that at times, only women were able to approach these fires - a tale we previously heard. Furthermore, in another place in his book, when quoting Geoffrey of Monmouth on the origin of Stonehenge, Gerald clearly mistakes Kildare for Killare - could the same be the case when he writes of Brigid? This association with Uisneach seems like more than a coincidence given that Uisneach features a holy well and ruins of a small church dedicated to St. Brigid.
Another important link is that Brigid's name is often strongly regarded as being not a personal name, but a title meaning high one or exalted one - and who is more exalted in Irish mythology than Ériu, the sovereignty goddess of Ireland that gave the country her name and who is, unsurprisingly, strongly associated with Uisneach. Tradition has it that Ériu was buried on the southwestern side of Uisneach, under a massive glacial erratic that is almost 6 m tall, weighing over 30 t. This monumental boulder, Ail na Míreann, Stone of the Divisions, represents the geographical and spiritual centre of Ireland where the land of Ireland has been named and the four provinces meet. It is the omphalos, the axis mundi of Ireland; the centre of the universe and creation where Amergin promised Ériu that the land will be known by her name. It is the liminal place where this world meets the Otherworld — and we’re already well familiar with Brigid's liminality. The gods Dagda and Lugh are deemed to be buried at Uisneach as well, which might be significant in the light of the hagiographies telling us of St. Brigid's most loyal disciple, Darlugdach, whose name literally means “daughter of Lugh”. Brigid herself is the daughter of the Dagda.
Brigid as a goddess is very briefly mentioned as Dagda’s daughter in Cath Tánaiste Maige Tuired, The Second Battle of Magh Tuireadh/Moytura, where we learn of an attribute that is not repeated in any other source; namely, she is described as the inventor of keening and weeping when she mourns her slain son, Rúadán (which might point to her connection to the Morrígan in her form of a shrieking bean sídhe/banshee). She is once more described as the Dagda’s daughter in Sanas Chormaic, Cormac's Glossary, which is the first written mention of Brigid as a goddess, a description which is repeated in Lebor Gabála Érenn, The Book of the Taking of Ireland in the 11th century. Cormac's Glossary, an influential encyclopedic dictionary, a compilation of etymological explanations of over 1.400 Irish words, has been preserved in at least six manuscripts, the original (the shortest and the oldest version) ascribed to Cormac mac Cuilennáin, the king and bishop of Cashel who died in 908. Following centuries have seen several redactions of the manuscript, all the way into the late medieval times. It is Cormac's Glossary that introduces the idea of Brigid being a title rather than a name. It speaks of Brigid as a wise, protective goddess of poets, who has two sisters, the goddess of healing and the goddess of smithing. All three sisters are named Brigid, thus introducing Brigid as a triple goddess; a signature concept of the Indo-European mythology and its tripartite system, reminiscent of another trinity goddess of ancient Ireland — the three Morrígna (at this point I should also note that the Morrígan is one of the candidates for Brigid's mother, the other two possibilities being Bóann and Danú). Cormac states that the Brigid sisters, due to their importance, gave the name to all the goddesses of Ireland.
Cormac’s Glossary is a contentious source, according to some voices. Those who are trying to prove that there is no historical proof for a pre-Christian Brigid argue that Brigid, had she been an important goddess that required absorption into Christianity, would have been mentioned much sooner than the early 10th century. This is, in my opinion, a baseless and rather ludicrous claim when we're dealing with a pre-Christian culture that cultivated oral, not written knowledge. There is no reason whatsoever why one would accept St. Brigid's fantastic hagiographies, written a minimum of 150 years after her death or even several centuries later, as factual history while discrediting a 10th century source describing a pre-Christian goddess. Both sources are far removed from the time they talk about; that's not a disqualifying factor on its own. Among scholars, Cormac's Glossary is widely accepted as an important source of information and it's quoted in scholarly work to this day, and I think it's worth keeping in mind that Cormac was not just one of the most educated scholars of his time, but also a devoted Christian bishop. It would have been highly unusual for a Christian man of his standing to not mention an important saint at all, yet mention a pagan goddess and give her all the attributes the saint normally features in her hagiographies. He had no reason whatsoever to invent his triple Brigid, and on top of that, his description contains too many elements that fit the Indo-European mythological narrative to be a purely fraudulent invention. In the light of Indo-European archaeology and linguistics, I can't in good faith see a rejection of Cormac's Glossary as a source as anything but a product of an anti-pagan bias that shouldn't have a place in a discussion, academic or otherwise. Whatever one's personal agenda is, Ireland's pre-Christian past can't be ignored and it's very much part of our everyday lives, no matter how christianised those lives are nowadays.
Finally, another curious link that ties Brigid, the Dagda, Killare and their connection to ritual fire might be hiding in Aed Mac Bricc, who was the bishop of Killare in the 6th century. We know he established an abbey in Killare, which happens to be just a road away from Brigid's holy well, and he shares the name with the mythological Aed, the son of the Dagda according to the Dindsenchas (lore of places; early Irish onomastic texts). That makes him the brother of Brigid, whom the Dindsenchas describe as druidess. The name Aed, nowadays often encountered in the form of the Irish male given name Aodh, Aodhán or Aidan, means fire.
In the belly of the unknown
The aforementioned Stone of the Divisions at Uisneach is surrounded by a Bronze Age burial barrow, showing that it was regarded as a place of importance thousands of years before St. Brigid and that of the mythological timeline of the lore of Lebor Gabála Érenn. But what exactly was its importance? What was the importance of other megalithic monuments, spanning from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, that are so densely distributed across the Irish landscape? And I mean that literally — even as I write this, I'm looking through my workshop window into our neighbour’s field; through two old hawthorn trees in the hedgerow I see the outline of a large standing stone. There is another one just behind the corner, almost forgotten, silently witnessing people going about their business and walking to the village corner shop; and three more in the fields just down the road. I see them all from my parents- in-law's living room. When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. For an archaeologist and a layperson alike, Ireland became a synonym for megalithic culture. Megalithic structures, standing stones and dolmens with giant wonky capstones instantly spring to mind when people think of Ireland. Interpreting these monuments, and particularly attempting to connect the megaliths with remnants of the folklore we see as pre-Christian, will always be restricted by their very nature and deep antiquity. When talking about any material artefacts and sites of pre-Christian Ireland, one simple reality has to be acknowledged - we're dealing with material sources of periods and people who left no written sources. To connect the dots of the leftovers of oral knowledge that was taught to generation after generation for thousands of years with prehistoric material culture requires a bit of a leap of faith, while treading carefully enough not to slip into completely baseless speculation. Ultimately, this leap of faith is not unlike the leap of faith Christian devotees of St. Brigid require to take her hagiographies as historical facts rather than a collection of folk tales. In fact, on the basis of archaeology and Indo-European linguistics, I'd argue the leap needed in this instance is smaller, but I can see how someone not trained in these disciplines might find indirect megalithic and onomastic evidence confusing.
In archaeological sense, there are no artefacts or monuments that we can directly link to Brigid. We're trying to create a large jigsaw out of a thousand small, scattered pieces. What we do know is that something was observed at the midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox. Many of Ireland's megaliths are aligned with the sunrise at solstices and equinoxes, and some are aligned with the so-called cross-quarter days between them. Neolithic passage tomb Dumha na nGiall - the Mound of the Hostages at Tara, and the magnificent Cairns U and L at Loughcrew are all aligned towards sunrise at Imbolg. Why was this the case is lost to ancient history, and so is the question of just how old is the concept of the cross-quarter days and how, why and when was Brigid's feast day stacked upon Imbolg.
In any case, we have to be mindful of the fact that even though we can confirm the significance of the cross-quarter days for the population of Ireland as early as the Neolithic, we can't confirm the link between megalithic alignments and Imbolg as attested in folklore. This is yet again the issue of the passage of time and the fragmentation of oral knowledge that inevitably comes with it. It's unfortunately completely impossible for us to know what did a Neolithic man call this time the sunrise lit the passage tombs of his close ancestors — we know for sure that it wasn't Imbolg, as its Indo-European root wouldn't come into existence for another thousand of years or more. We can place the inception of the concept of the cross-quarter days in time and space only vaguely — but it is there, somewhere in deep prehistory.
Irish folklore beliefs tell us that the cross-quarter days are related to observing changes in nature that dictate how to manage crops, hunting and livestock, and that Imbolc is related to the beginning of early lambing season. Researching this topic on the Internet is even more of a minefield than researching Brigid, with unchecked information being shared all the time and cemented as conventional knowledge. Most mentions of Imbolg or Imbolc on the Internet come from various pagan websites that simply treat Imbolg as a Celtic festival and a part of the Wheel of the Year; possible prehistoric origins of Imbolc are rarely mentioned. One of the persistent pieces of misinformation is that the Wheel of the Year - the division of the year into eight festivals as observed by contemporary pagans - has unbroken roots in the ancient Celtic calendar. The reality is the Wheel has been created by the likes of Gerald Gardner, often called the father of modern witchcraft, and Ross Nichols from the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, sometimes around 1950s, as an amalgam of quarter and cross-quarter days observed throughout Europe. The Wheel is Celtic and Germanic at the same time, with a lot of reconstruction involved, but before completely discarding it, it's worth remembering that the creation of modern witchcraft and pagan movements is merely another example of syncretism and natural changes. The establishment of various Wiccan groups in the mid 20th century in its principle doesn't differ much from the establishment of a new Christian religion in the Early Medieval period. Syncretism isn’t a static occurrence (and neither is any religion of the world!) or something of the past, it's very much a perpetual human experience and new religions and spiritual movements are formed on the foundations of other practices all the time, be it the 5th century, 1950s or 2020s.
What we nowadays call Imbolg or Imbolc is attested as an entry in the already mentioned Cormac's Glossary. Most common etymology discussed today is i mbolg, “in a belly”, again in relation to the start of an early lambing season, however Cormac notes the etymology of Óimelc as the “beginning of spring” and ói-melg as “ewe milk” and “that time when the sheep's milk comes”. Another etymology brought up in more recent interpretations is imb fholc, "to purify/wash oneself”, referring to ritual cleansing. Interestingly, reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *h₂melǵ-, milk/to milk, can be found in some Indo-European languages in words connected to purification, notably Persian mâlidan, to rub/smear and Sanskrit marjati, to clean/wipe.
Speaking of Indo-European etymologies, it's important to note that Indo-European reconstruction with its strict phonetic and grammatical rules offers a unique window of insight into languages that left us fragmentary evidence or nothing at all; another tool, albeit not nearly as systematic as Indo-European linguistics, is onomastical evidence. Toponyms related to Brigid can be found all over Ireland and Scotland, but also England (for example Brent), where the Gallo-Roman goddess Brigantia is thought to be cognate with Irish Brigid. Brigantia’s name come from Proto-Celtic *brigantī, Proto-Indo-European *bʰr̥ǵʰéntih₂ (feminine form of *bʰérǵʰonts, high), derived from the root *bʰerǵʰ-, to rise, as per renowned Indo-European scholar and my former professor, Ranko Matasovic3. Etymologically, this points to Brigid's relationship to other Indo-European goddesses of dawn like Ushas in Hindu mythology, which are commonly seen as primordial mothers, a source of life of all. Across Britain there are currently six stone inscriptions related to Brigantia, as well as one inscription from a coin found in Spain, suggesting that there might have been a cognate Celtiberian goddess. In one form or another, Brigid seems to be widespread in the entire Celtic world, and the tribe of the Brigantii is attested in England, Ireland and, according to some interpretations, the Alpine region of Europe. Related toponyms can be found in ancient settlements all over Europe, for example Brigobanne near rivers Breg and Brigach in southern Germany, Bregenz in Austria, Brigetio in Hungary on the border with Slovakia. It's important to point out that all these toponyms might be interpreted as simply referring to a high place (most of them are hillforts) and aren't necessarily related to a goddess, though that wouldn't explain the same names given to bodies of water - rivers and wells that typically aren't on high ground.
Like all other phenomena related to Brigid that was mentioned so far, onomastic evidence is heavily fragmented in its nature, but can we completely reject these fragments as not being enough to tell us anything about our ancient past? I'd argue such a notion goes against everything we know about the past, as well as history and archaeology. More often than not, these two sciences are exactly that, a painstaking game of jigsaw puzzle, and historical linguistics are now a welcome aid in assembling it.
Maybe the real question is can we, in this world that is obsessed with black and white absolutes, accept that there are things of which we only have an incomplete picture and embrace the little something? Or do we, when facing something that has been reduced to tiny fragments, opt for the easy way out, for erasure and cancellation, bemoaning that we must know it all or else it's worth nothing? And most importantly, why do we have this tendency to fear that which is not from “our” culture?
The hag of winter and the maiden of spring
Personally, to me it feels obvious and natural that all these scattered traces point to Brigid as an entity that was venerated in Ireland for thousands of years and then finally, being too strong and rooted to simply disappear, blended into Christianity. The curious connection of Brigid's Tuatha Dé Danann with the ritual hearth of their land, the Hill of Uisneach, makes a lot of sense when we analyse all the sources and realise that the Tuadha Dé don't give definite answers about their family relations. Brigid, Danú, Ériu and the Morrígan all seems to share a number of attributes and morph into one another in certain aspects.
Another connection worth considering is the Cailleach (veiled one), the divine hag and creator deity of the Celtic tradition that is most certainly a celticised echo of a tradition far older than the Celts. The Cailleach folklore is particularly richly preserved in Scotland, where she is seen as the great mother goddess, the source of all; older than the time itself, and she's also the entity who presides over winter, only to give way or morph into a goddess that embodies spring and renewal — you guessed it, Brigid. This cyclical sense of time that acknowledges the reality that perpetual destruction (winter) is necessarily needed to give birth to renewal (spring) is reflected in indigenous spiritual traditions all over the world.
Many old stories connect the Cailleach with Neolithic tombs all over Ireland, but the most peculiar connection is that with Loughcrew, the already mentioned cluster of megalithic monuments of which two are aligned with what we nowadays call Imbolg. The hills of Loughcrew, known as Sliabh na Calliagh, The Cailleach’s mountain, consist of four hills - Carnbane West, Carrickbrack, Carnbane East and Patrickstown Hill - with about twenty passage tombs on them. It's said this mountain range when the Cailleach dropped huge stones from her apron (the divine womb), falling and breaking her neck while jumping to the last, the Patrickstown Hill, where she was buried. The central passage grave of this megalithic cemetery, the one that is the largest and most prominent, visible from miles away and lavishly carved, is Cairn T, known as Hag’s Cairn. It features a monumental kerbstone known as the Hag’s Chair — it is said this was the seat from which the Cailleach watched over her kingdom and creation. Cairn T is aligned with both the spring and the autumn equinox at sunrise.
The whole of Ireland is dotted with placenames that point to Brigid and the Cailleach — in fact, these two names seem to be the two most common sources of toponyms across Ireland. Megaliths and glacial erratics with names such as Hag’s Head and Hag’s Bed are present in every county. The sheer extent of these names, even with the passage of time and lack of written records, show they couldn't have been conjured out of thin air. Instead, they’re a reflection of thousands of years of tradition. Traces of the ancient language of goddess veneration can be found in every inch of Ireland's soil.
Seeing Brigid as a title, when we say “the goddess Brigid” I picture her as an amalgam of a myriad of deeply venerated goddesses that loaned Brigid her wide range of attributes as the goddess of spring, fertility, healing, water and sacred wells, blacksmithing, poetry, childbirth, livestock, dairy; and an embodiment of traditions far older than the Celtic ones Brigid as an incredibly multifaceted deity. She features facets that reflect different members of the Tuatha Dé Danann (Danú, Ériu, the Morrígan), combined with all the layers of Brigid as a saint that we can extrapolate from her fantastic hagiographies where a saint is given all the attributes of pagan goddesses across Europe, and it points to Brigid being an expression of thousands of years of complex spiritual practices and traditions rooted in the land. In that sense Brigid herself is the land, as proclaimed by Amergin; because to speak to Ériu is to speak to Brigid, Danú, the Morrígan and the Cailleach. The high one has been the roots, the rivers, the soil, the salmon and the sheep that grazes on the land since time immemorial.
The perpetual fire of tradition
Syncretism, as already mentioned, is an unavoidable and natural order of things when a new religious practice is introduced (I highly recommend reading Carole Cusack’s article linked below, where she lays out excellent arguments for syncretism in early Irish Christianity). As an archaeologist, I intimately know just how different insular and continental (pre)histories are. Take any period of prehistory and you will face significant differences in chronologies and material culture. Independent development is a natural consequence of being geographically insulated from continental Europe - so when Christianity and Ireland collided, the rich pre-Christian culture of Ireland gave the new religion a unique flavour, very different from traditions found on the continent. The concept of Celtic Christianity being different has been present since the inception of Christianity (refer to Cusack, p. 96). An echo of that is even found in the dreaded Gerald of Wales — it must be noted that Gerald's patron, King Henry II of England, invaded Ireland with the blessing of the pope Alexander III who was hoping for an opportunity to establish his papal authority over the Irish church, an entity which was seen as unruly and pagan. This reinforces the idea of Brigid as a continuation of older traditions — syncretism with pre-Christian practices is virtually what insular Celtic Christianity was known for, even in Rome. I myself testify this is the case to this very day — having lived in another, continental Catholic country, its Catholicism and the Catholicism of Ireland very much feel like two different religions, even though they're the same Catholicism under the same supreme pontiff.
Brigid is, in my eyes, an all-encompassing example of this syncretism of the old and the new Ireland. I feel the attempts to erase the pre-Christian Brigid are based on fear and discomfort of Christianity becoming less relevant in Ireland. You can see the loss of Church's influence on the statistics and you can see it in your daily life and people's values and demeanours. In a desperate attempt to maintain the familiar, comforting rigidity, it is easy to forget that Christianity some are trying to preserve and purge from paganism wasn't the default culture of Ireland. Brigid was here before it, but even more important - something was here before Brigid. And something before that, and something before that… We can go all the way into Paleolithic and Mesolithic and the first peopling of what is now the island of Ireland if we want, and there will always be something that is older. Such is the natural order of things. We can call that something the Cailleach or a dozen other names — for our own convenience, not historical accuracy.
Erasure doesn't work because it isn't natural; erasure is always fragmenting one's identity in favour of an agenda. The Ireland of today isn't a Christian, Catholic Ireland — because there has never been such a thing as one monumental Christian Ireland that was built on a clean, wiped slate. Ireland is a sum of the whole history of Irish Christianity, combined with the whole history of pre-Christian traditions that were absorbed into the new religion. Today's Irish Christianity and that of the 7th, 13th and 18th century are all fundamentally different, yet they're all Irish Christianity. Change is normal, inevitable and natural. In fact, change is the very reason why Christianity exists in this very moment. Those who can't embrace change and adapt are bound to crumble and fall. Just like Brigid once changed into St. Brigid, thousands of years after she herself likely evolved from numerous traditions surrounding the Cailleach, today's Irish spirituality is in a constant motion, ever evolving into its unique insular flavour. And that is okay — we don't have to chase definitions with crisp edges to feed the fire of our identity. Our identity can grow from the beauty of surrendering to the natural flow of things; it includes the beauty of not knowing and not having all the answers. Such uncertainty isn't a threat, but a life in tune with the natural order of things. Not knowing the exact nature of Brigid, the exact time when she gained her name and all her signature traits, doesn't take anything away from her and our devotion to her. Brigid flows — in 2024 Ireland she is this ever-evolving goddess and beloved saint all at the same time; just like all spirituality constantly flows in order to survive.
A complete respect for one's indigenous land and its culture, be it Ireland or any other places in the world, can only ever be developed by immersing yourself into the full picture, into every little stitch that's been left on the fabric of time. Modern Christianity in Ireland or early Celtic Christianity aren't a standalone island of culture and Irishness, but a drop in the ocean of spiritual practices spanning over thousands of years. We can't possibly know the full extent of those practices — what we know of Ireland's earliest megalith builders is lost to time and left to our interpretation that will never be the same as seeing the great mounds erected through the eyes of the Neolithic population. Just because we don't know the full extent of it doesn't mean we can discard it and erase it; we should embrace the gentle art of not knowing and letting the time and culture flow naturally and organically. Denigrating what isn't ours doesn't make our own practice any better or more exalted, it just makes us look like fanatics and brings on isolation and exclusivity.
Everywhere we turn on this island, we see pre-Christian and Christian heritage running parallel marathons through time. Every step we make is trodden upon many, sometimes uncountable layers of cultural and social changes. They all flow and coexist to this very day. Such is the nature of human existence — why are we fighting it; what does it achieve? No matter its cultural significance over the centuries and in more recent times, Christianity isn't the indigenous, native spiritual practice of the island of Ireland. It's a fact that can't be ignored or erased, but one that should be cherished in its complexity. After some 1.600 years of Christianity in Ireland, why is there still a fear of what came before if one is sure of their faith? Brigid is and always will be a multifaceted patron of Ireland and the unknown parts of her nature should be embraced as an integral part of Irish culture. Ancient myths, no matter how Christianised and fragmented they were when written down by medieval scribes, still bear an echo of reality. Brigid’s importance didn't bloom out of some dry, dead seeds, planted out of nowhere, but out of an ancient mycorrhizal network that has been running through this sacred land since time immemorial. To erase the Brigid of pre-Christian times and prop up a rigid Brigid exclusive to Christianity in her place is to cut out a part of those all-encompassing roots, to shatter the culture into standalone fragments lost in time and space. And that is what colonialism does - fragmentation is the very mechanism it requires to work its foul magic. Fragmentation of the human experience, of the intertwinement with the land, cultural and spiritual practices, language; as Ireland has brutally felt over and over again throughout 800 years and counting. Let's not add to it; further erasure will not mend Ireland's deep colonial trauma and the search for identity brought on by that trauma — it will only deepen those wounds as Ireland crumbles into more and more fragments.
I find it more than fitting to finish these thoughts with the almost prophetic words of Irish revolutionary Pádraig Pearse (1912), words that speak of tradition, antiquity and colonial trauma, both in English and as Gaeilge4.
Sources and recommendations:
Berger, P. The Goddess Obscured: Transformation of the Grain Protectress from Goddess to Saint. Boston, Beacon Press, 1985.
Condren, M. The serpent and the goddess: women, religion and power in Celtic Ireland. San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1989.
Cusack, C. Brigit: Goddess, Saint, 'Holy Woman', and Bone of Contention. In: On a Panegyrical Note: Studies in Honour of Garry W. Trompf. Sydney, University of Sydney, 2017, 75-97 (available for download here)
Hamp, E. Imbolc, oímelc. Studia Celtica 14–15, 1979, 106–13
Harrington, C. Women in the Celtic Church: Ireland c. 450-1150. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002.
Mallory, J. P. and Adams, Douglas Q. (eds.), Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Taylor & Francis, 1997.
McCone, Kim R. Pagan past and Christian present in early Irish literature. Maynooth Monographs 3, An Sagart, 1990.
Ó Cathasaigh, D. The Cult of Brigid: A Study of Pagan-Christian Syncretism in Ireland. In: Mother Worship: Themes and Variations. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1982, 75-94
Ó Catháin, S. Hearth-Prayers and Other Traditions of Brigit: Celtic Goddess and Holy Woman. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 122, 1992, 12-34
Ó Catháin, S. The Festival of Brigit the Holy Woman. Celtica XXIII, 1999, 231-260
Ó hÓgáin, D. Myth, Legend & Romance: An encyclopaedia of the Irish folk tradition. New Jersey, Prentice Hall Press, 1991.
Mythical Ireland - The story of the Cailleach of Loughcrew and its meaning.
Wee White Hoose: exploring stories, traditions, and folklore from Scotland - Older than time: the myth of the Cailleach, the great mother
Roaringwater Journal - use the search function to find numerous, well researched articles on both Christian and pre-Christian Brigid.
In this video, Kris Hughes is examining all known written sources that mention Brigid as a goddess.
Matasovic, Ranko (2009). Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic. Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series vol. 9, Brill. 78–79
Taken from Mise Éire - Wikipedia
Go-hálainn! Go h-iontach! This piece is such an important contribution. (And I am deeply honored to be quoted and to have added some seasoning to what was brewing in your cauldron.
What a fabulous and informative piece of writing... I got here through a recommendation of @dr Sharon Blackie - and how pleased am I to have discovered this. Looking forward to reading more of your work - thank you