St. Brigid of Kildare; a few notes on Ireland's second patron saint

 A chairde,

Today is the Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare, patron saint of Ireland, second only to Patrick and the first actual Irish-born saint. You'll see her name as Brigit or Bridget, also Bride (St. Bride’s, the church in Fleet Street, London, is dedicated to her, for example); the Irish is Bríd. She is said to have died on February 1, 524, in her early 70s. That would put her birth in the middle of the Fourth Century, about the time (we can't be very certain) of St. Patrick's missionary activities in Ulster and Connacht.

To put this in a bit wider perspective, in the year 451, the pagan Germanic tribe of the Franks invaded Gaul as far as the Somme River (which is as far as the Imperial Germans got in 1914, come to think of it), and in the year 496, they were baptized en masse into the Catholic Faith (most Germanic tribes serving Rome at that time were Arians). The island just to the east of Ireland was still Britannia in those days, though fast collapsing into petty pagan Germanic kingdoms that eventually evolved into what's now England. So, St. Bríd lived a long time ago, indeed.

She was born in Faughart, it is said, near Dunalk in what's now the northeasternish County Lough. Her mother a slave, and both mother and daughter may well have been influenced by either the roaming St. Patrick or his disciples. In any event, she was a Christian from early on. Her pagan father found her difficult, as she was always helping the poor and giving away his goods, even his sword, which he foolishly left unattended in his chariot. (I can't imagine he'd let the beggar keep it.) Her father, Dubhthach, sold her (and her slave mother Brocca) to a Druid, for the Draoi had spoken in her favor, telling the father not to punish her, for he foresaw (as druids did) that she would be one of Ireland's greats, a woman marked by the gods. Her new master treated her very well; no doubt she was taught much in the way of language and poetry, and a great deal of the legends of the ancient Celts. 

This old story is more significant than many realize. St. Brigid's legend contains no animosity between pagan Ireland and the Christian Faith, and indeed, Ireland is unique in not having early martyrs to the Faith, i.e. Christian killed by the pagan Irish. Irish Christians were martyred by Christian British raiders (in Patrick's own lifetime) and of course by the Christian English throughout the 800 years of their occupation of Ireland (and also by pagan Vikings, during their heyday, as the movie The Secret of Kells illustrates all to graphically).

• But how Christianity was adopted by the Irish is one of those mysteries that will remain that way: mysterious.
  
• Irish Christianity can be said to have developed in a sacred "dream time", as did the Traditional Latin Mass. No true records exist of the early development of either.
  
• There was no Irish Constantine nor Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, nor Clovis of the Franks, imposing the Faith by force of arms.
  
• By the time we have a primarily historical Ireland, the island is Christian, and the druid schools, as court poets and bards and lawyers and doctors, maintain their place until the Elizabethan conquest, a 1,000 years later.
  
• (For details, I refer you to the book: The Christian Druids: On the Filid or Philosopher-Poets of Ireland by John Minahane.)

But there's a lot to all that, and to St. Brigid's era. For example, Ireland's third patron saint, St. Colm Cille, or Columba – who was born (521) about the time Brigid died in 523 – in 575 participated in a political/legal/constitutional convention at Druim Cett in the northeast of Ireland (he was THE northern saint, and the great missionary to what is now Scotland). At the convention, the politics involved settling the relationship of Scottish kingdom of Dalriada (i.e. Irish-Celtic people who settled in what's now southwest Scotland, eventually creating the medieval kingdom of Scotland) to mainland Ireland. But Columba also famously "saved the druids" at same the assembly, as well, granting them various legal rights. Usually, they're called "poets" in old histories, though there's no doubt who they really were. So you can see that within the lifetime of Naomh Bríd herself, and a little more, half the lifetime of St. Columba, how Ireland slowly had become Christianized and how the pagan Irish intellectuals (the druids) were maintained after the country became mostly Christian. Surely St. Brigid was an essential part of that conversion.

Although said to be born in the north, she settled in Leinster, in Kildare (Oak Church) and founded a double monastery, one that had both men and women. It seems quite possible that it had been a great pagan sanctuary of the Celtic Goddess Brigit, and St. Brigid "converted" it into a major Christian shrine. If that is what happened, then in doing so she'd be following Pope St. Gregory the Great's (pope from 590 to 604) teaching to convert pagan shrines into Catholic churches, if possible, and doing so 70-80 years before Gregory reigned.

A sacred flame was kept alight at Kildare, tended by the nuns and monks, until (of course, who else?) the Norman-English invaders stomped it out. (The Church of Ireland cathedral there now was originally built in the 13th century by the Normans. I've not been in it; the old Catholic cathedral in Armagh, now Church of Ireland, as well, was depressing enough; it does have a pagan god idol, though, sitting in a corner: I said to it, "Bhuel, bíonn tú anseo fós, ar aon nós". And at least it was never Vatican II "wreckovated".)

Anyone of Irish cultural background knows St. Brigid's importance, from being invoked at a woman's giving birth to being patron of beer to lighting fires in the hearth to holy art, for her special straw crosses adorn many a wall in Ireland, usually inside but even outside, as well. (I used to make them for Irish-American festivals, but today is the day to do it.) She's definitely the embodiment of the strong-willed Irish womanhood, and is a natural ecclesiastical version of the famous Irish women, from pagan Queen Maebh down to the Grainne O'Malley, the Connacht "pirate queen" who corresponded with Queen Elizabeth Tudor.

This prayer to Naomh Bríd is from the famous Carmina Gadelica:

I am under the shielding
Of good Brigit each day;
I am under the shielding
Of good Brigit each night.
I am under the keeping
Of the Nurse of Mary, *
Each early and late,
Every dark, every light.
Brigit is my comrade-woman,
Brigit is my maker of song,
Brigit is my helping-woman,

My choicest of women, my guide. 

*"Nurse of Mary", Irish legend says she was the Blessed Mother's midwife.

I've always remembered this simple prayer below, and only in Irish; this is the first time I've seen it translated:

A Bhríd, a Mhuire na nGael
Translation:  Brid, Mary of the Gael.
 
A Bhríd, scaoil tharam do bhrat
Translation: cover me in your cloak
 
Agus coinnigh faoi do chumhdach mé
Translation: and protect me
 
Go mbeidh mé leat i bhflaitheas Dé
Translation: until I am with you in God's heaven.

• (A note attached says: The Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians in California Wishes to Thank Melanie O'Keefe from Division one in Orange Co. CA who made this page possible.)

Raghn again:

Much more could be said of St. B. And Ireland today, a narcissistic, plastic sort of consumer place just coming out of strict lockdowns, needs her indomitable spirit more than ever. But then we all need such daughters of God, such mothers in the Faith, as that little girl sold long ago to an old druid, back in the dream time.

An Préachán

Guest post: Saint Columba biography

 Guest post by Mike Finn, an AOH historian:

The Irish island most associated with St. Colm Cille is Tory Island which lies nine miles off the north western coast of County Donegal. 

You will find Tory Island first mentioned in Irish Mythology. As the ancient tales relate, the island was the home of the Formorians, a race of giants (supposedly, a very rough bunch), who were ruled by King Balor of the Evil Eye. Balor had one eye in the middle of his forehead and the other one directly opposite in the back of his head. One glance from his evil eye meant certain death.

A prophesy dictated that Balor could only be killed by his own grandson. To prevent this prophesy from being fulfilled, Balor imprisoned his only daughter, Ethlinn, in a crystal tower on the eastern end of Tory Island so that no man could get to her.  Despite his efforts at shielding Ethlinn form the world, Cain mac Cainte of the Tuatha de Danann, managed to reach the island and enter the tower. Through their union Lugh Lamhfada (Lugh of the Long Arm) was born. Lugh escaped Balor’s attempt to murder him as an infant on Tory Island and became a member of the Tuatha de Danann. He would become the chief god of the Celts. In the second and final battle of Mag Tuireadh in County Roscommon, Lugh managed to smash out Balor's eye with a sling and Balor fell dead. This battle marked the end of the Formorians and ushered in the rule of the Tuatha de Danann.

Later in history we find the island being Christianized by St. Colm Cille. Local legend says that Colm Cille stood on a hill in County Donegal with his companions Saints Fionán, Dubthach and Begley. As they stood there they discussed who would have the task of converting the Tory islanders to Christianity.  They decided to resolve the question by throwing their crosiers. Whoever threw his crosier as far as the island would carry out the conversion.  Colmcille’s crosier landed on Tory Island, winning him the reward of converting the island. His crosier is said to have formed a crater on Tory’s northeast cliffs.  Colmcille founded a monastery on Tory in the 6th century.

Colm Cille is most famous for his tangle with copyright law.  During a visit to his old teacher, St. Finnian of Moville, Colm Cille was shown a manuscript that was the Psalter of St. Jerome (a Psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms). Colm Cille wanted a copy of the manuscript to share with his monasteries. So, each night Colm Cille carefully traced the pages of the manuscript onto fresh parchment. Soon Colm Cille had copied the entire volume.  Colm Cille claimed the copy as his. Finnian demanded the return of the original manuscript and the copy. Colm Cille believed he should keep the copy.  The matter was referred to Dermott, the High King for arbitration.  After reviewing the evidence Dermott issued the now famous copyright decision, “To each cow her calf and to each book its copy.”  Colm Cille was forced to return the copy of the Psalter to Finnian.

This decision led to the Battle at Cúl Dreimhne, near Ben Bulben in County Sligo, Dermott's army and Colm Cille's family (Uí Néills) met. Throughout the battle (often called The Battle of the Books), Colm Cille prayed for the success of the northern force. His prayers were answered. The High King's army of three thousand men was massacred, with only one casualty on the side of the Uí Néills.

Colm Cille was almost excommunicated for his actions in inciting the battle, but he was saved at the last minute by the intervention of St. Brendan of Birr.  However, in confessing his sins to St. Molaise, Colmcille was given a most unusual penance.  St. Molaise said, “You will leave your land and your kindred – forever.  You shall behold them no more but shall travel in foreign lands, winning as many souls for Christ as were slain at Cúl Dreimhne.” He then left for Scotland and established his monastery on the island of Iona.

MIKE

June 9 was St. Columba's Feast Day...

 A Chairde,

Sorry to be just mentioning this, but 9 June was St. Colum Cille's Feast day. He lived from 7 December 521 to 9 June 597, and was an O'Neill prince (a great-great grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages himself, high king before Patrick ever arrived) from the north of Ireland who became the Apostle of Scotland, or as some would have it, Apostle to the Picts, or at least to the Irish colony in what is now southwestern Scotland.

Were I to start to even begin a cursory history of the saint, I'd end up writing a book. For those interested, try the old Catholic Encyclopedia article on him. 

For an interesting bit of insight into the times of St. Columba, and especially those small stone "oratory" churches here and there, particularly in Kerry (far outside of St. Columba's activities) consider reading old Fr. Hunwicke's 9 June column. 

A lot of great info, on many levels! As it is not long, here it is.

9 June 2021

S Columba: all is revealed (2) (With a fine thread from more than a decade ago)

There isn't really any mystery about why S Columba did not enter the church until after the Gospel of the Mass. For the answer, you only need to go to the Iveragh peninsula in County Kerry - that's the bulge sticking out into the Atlantic just South of the not always edifying tourist honey-trap of the Dingle. (Avoid the Dingle; go to the Waterville and Valentia Island area.) If you are a bookish sort of person, take the admirable Archaeological Survey of the Iveragh published by UCC. And, before you go, read my own paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Volume 102C, Number 1, 2002. (You could do worse than to read the even older treatment in by Francoise Henry: Volume 58C, 45-166.) And let yourself be lured into crawling around the innumerable early Christian sites. 

The Skellig Island (to which, as I recently observed, G B Shaw once had himself rowed from Sneem) is uniquely dramatic and - provided you are not easily seasick - a must, but you may be a little diasappointed by being made to wait before climbing to the top so that the previous lot of tourists can come down, chattering away into their mobile phones to their boyfriends in Barcelona. Go as well or instead for peace and quiet and visit Killabuonia and trace the buildings among the brambles on the hillside; and get a boatman to row you the few yards from Port Magee to Illaunloghan,  excavated and spectacularly written up by Jenny Marshall White (for sale in the shops at Port Magee ... Magee was a pirate ...). Or during the spring low tides you can walk through the straights across to Illaunloghan, watching the scallops snapping shut as you wade past them.

What you will discover is that the stone oratories which survive in such abundance, often with 'Founder's Shrines' and standing crosses beside them, were very very small. And archaeology has revealed that the wood and peat oratories which preceded the stone edifices were even smaller. And yet, apparently, these chapels served large 'monastic' communities and very large lay districts. It is clear that entire congregations could have not got into these little buildings. 

What obviously happened was that the bulk of the congregation was outside, and that even the clergy were outside, from the litany which started the Mass until after the Gospel. Then the clergy, probably not more than half a dozen individuals, went inside for the Holy Sacrifice.

Ergo ...

Reivers, Catholicism, Protestantism: Elm Trees Meditations

(Trees in County Mayo; all the photos here are from Pullathomais, Co. Mayo)

June 9, Feast of St. Columba, Colum-cille

There were once two huge elm trees; they lived on the farm I was born on in Ohio. Pretty near the road, but when they were planted back in the Dreamtime, that road was a dirt track. Or perhaps a mere trail between the then endless forest that luxuriated between Lake Erie in the north and the Ohio River in the south. A cabin stood there, at some point, a log cabin cornered on four large boulders that only had their tops showing. Two of them you could run the mower over, the other two were high enough you had to mow around them. But by the time I was born, and the elms were gone.

The Dutch Elm Disease killed them.

But when my parents and older brothers moved to this location, the elms stood. And what elms there were. 80 feet high, or 24 meters, and 100 feet or so across, 30.5 meters. They shaded everything in the yard as well as the house (the house that had replaced the cabin ages ago). But they died, killed by one of the three species of ascomycete microfungi. Their stumps remained for years, though, and I remember those well enough.

(One of the reasons I don’t want to go to Hell is there, in Hell, I’d never see those trees, whereas in Heaven I’m sure they’re still growing, and in the deep shade of God’s Beatific Vision.)

All that reminds me of the lost Latin Mass of my youth, something I don’t remember either, not consciously. I grew up haunted by those elms and that lost Mass. As I walked about, breathing, living, taking up space and spinning out time, I knew, just knew – as when you know you’ve left your keys behind but can’t remember what you’re missing – I just knew there was something gone astray. Something misplaced, something lost and longed for.

I suppose it’s my fate to be haunted. The Irish language was the other thing missing from my life, but more on that in another essay, for it is the biggest ghost of all, as we can speak together, it and I.

At any rate, I’m familiar with ghosts.

But imagine walking up to an elm tree like one of those and staring up at its arcing branches, for an ulmus americana often develops in the shape of water shot out of a hose directly upward, beautiful branches in arcs angling out from a straight stem. And the leaves: I’ve looked at, rubbed, collected ulmus leaves since childhood and they’re ‟hairy” on top, but an ulmus americana’s leaves were hard on top, smooth, almost like plastic. Imagine their voices – I’ve heard this noise all my life, in the sounds of sugar maple leaves sighing in the breeze – the susurration of thousands a leaves rustling on the wind, emerald banderoles of the Living God. Imagine starting up at such a glorious, living thing, and then whipping out a chain saw, firing it up, its ratcheting guttural grind pitching high into a speed-of-light roar, and then attacking that tree.

Picture yourself attacking it, sawing away, ‟getting into it” with aplomb and adrenaline, glorying in the cracking and crashing sounds of the great limbs falling to earth. And eventually, you’ve most of it cut down – not all of it, but what is left is mostly cut away: there you stand, in sweat, sawdust, and numbed arms and hands, and there you gesture to the poor horror and say in a triumphant voice: NOW I’ve gotten down to the TRUE tree! I’ve cleaned away the clutter and this is the heart’s core of an elm!”

You’d be mad. Madder than any hatter. Were any druids still around, they stab you to death with stone knives and foretell the future from the way your blood leaped forth in freedom from your hide.

That’s what Luther did. (The tree-cutting, not the druid part – he had the wrong ancestry for that.) It’s what Calvin did. The formidable Huldrych Zwingli did, too (I say ‟formidable” because Luther, on hearing that Zwingli was killed in battle, said, ‟Good! I’m glad he’s dead!” because Luther met him and got the sense that here was a potential Protestant Alexander, a Swiss Caesar, and such ambitious, capable men are clearly feared by ambitious but less than capable men).

All the original Protestant reformers were like Muhammad himself in wanting to ‟get back to basics”, pare it all down the the root of the issue, go back to the pure and unsullied faith held by the Patriarchs at the beginning. And Muhammad is a good metaphor. Though the Arabic Muslim ‟Muhammad” probably didn’t exist at all, or if he did, not as anything (much) like his legend (the very name ‟Muhammad” is a title, not a name per se, and means ‟the praised one” and had been originally applied by Arab speakers to Christ. But Muhammad the Legend is a great metaphor because he cleared out the idols from Mecca but left the most important, dangerous idol of all, the black meteorite, so the Reformers threw down and smashed the statues and overturned and broke the altars and shattered the heavenly stained glass windows, but left the black stone of Unbelief that lies all too close to the heart of every honest believer, and to those especially on very steps of the altar (that last is from C. S. Lewis).

So the Protestants cut down the 2,000-year-old elm tree of the Church, or tried to. And asked why, they said, ‟We’re just doing a little trimming! Getting rid of the bark! The leaves! The outer wood! Because we want to inner, true root to flower!”

I don’t want to ‟pick on” Protestants, or at least, not on the honest Christian believers I grew up with and among whom I still have a friend or two, but rather the ‟true, inner Protestant” is my quarry, the iconoclast, the merciless Reivers. We have them in Catholicism too. Hordes. ‟Back in the day,” in Luther’s day, the various states, kingdoms, republics, free cities, and the Holy Roman Empire, all had a say in ‟church-state” relations, and these either embraced the Protestant Revolution or banished it, so therefore Luther & Co. all had to ‟get out” of the Church.

In the time of Vatican II, the various states could not possibly care less what the Church did, or didn’t do, and so the ‟Protestants”, the iconoclasts just stayed on, ‟reivering” away even still, the infamous "Wreckovators" who destroy old churches, to a day when Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx and that roman-collared sex-fiend fornicator Karl Rahner realized they would all have to do a naked fertility dance in St. Peter’s Square, AND do such a dance on naked ladies invocating Dionysus himself, to get excommunicated. (Even Küng, of whom it could be said Luther was more Catholic, was never excommunicated, just ‟reprimanded”, whatever that consists of in such a context.)

Druidism must run in my blood. Or at least I’m somehow kin to the Ents. For I loath Tree Reivers wherever they ply their uncivilized, mordant trade.

An Préachán