Kildare to celebrate Spirit of St Brigid
Holly Lane McBride, 6, and Eabha O'Brien, 5, both from Kildare, mark the launch of the Spirit of Kildare Festival in Kildare Town. Kildare is gearing up to welcome over 100,000 visitors this January and February as the Brigid 2025 - Spirit of Kildare Festival.
The new Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, played a key role in persuading the previous Government to create a new national public holiday to celebrate Brigid of Kildare, a patron of Ireland with Saints Patrick and Colmcille.
But his appointment as the political head of the country’s oldest Government department is not the only link with Lá ‘le Bríde, which is on this Saturday with next Monday designated as the Bank Holiday.
St Brigid’s Day and the Gaelic festival of Imbolc on February 1 are traditionally known in rural Ireland as the start of a new year on the land, with winter giving way to spring, fresh growth and new beginnings.
Minister Heydon, a Minister of State in the last Government at the Department he now leads, is a Fine Gael TD from Kildare where Brigid set up a double monastery for men and women in the fifth century.
Hailed as a champion of the poor, justice and equality, she was also a peacemaker and environmentalist who milked cows, churned milk, made up firkins of butter, looked after sheep, helped with the harvest and is sometimes considered as one of the patron saints of beer.
A compassionate and holy woman, she was the daughter of a pagan chieftain father and a Christian mother, shares her name with the Celtic goddess, Brigit, and is associated with many legends and folk customs.
Minister Heydon, now a Cabinet minister in that Government, campaigned for recognition of Brigid of Kildare for many years along with the Brigidine sisters and others who were passionate about celebrating her life with a public holiday.
A beef and tillage farmer, he now has political responsibility for many of the enterprises that Saint Brigid promoted as she travelled countrywide on a chariot. These included livestock farming, dairy production, poultry keeping, ploughing, sheep farming, blacksmithing and horticulture.
She has been venerated by Irish people for generations, especially those living in rural areas, where newborn girls, as well as churches, schools, holy wells, shrines, cemeteries and even GAA clubs are named after her. There are at least 43 townlands named Kilbride in her honour.
Her feast day, which is about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc and is seen as a time to look ahead to brighter days, warmer weather, new growth and care for the earth.
Many sites associated with Saint Brigid have become places of annual pilgrimages. Water from holy wells dedicated to her was often taken home and sprinkled on cattle and crops and in farm outhouses to protect them from harm or damage.
According to tradition, Saint Brigid was born at Faughart, near Dundalk, around 454 and is thought to have died 75 years later after a life of prayer, healing, feeding the poor and spreading Christianity.
The public holiday that honours her enduring legacy will be observed countrywide this weekend with religious services, festivals and a wide range of community and cultural events.
The Brigid 2025 Spirit of Kildare festival will highlight the values she championed, such as spirituality, peace, sustainability, arts and culture, social justice, hospitality, and education, and their relevance in the world today.
In her native Louth, the Brigid of Faughart Festival aims to revisit and reclaim some of the richness of the traditions associated with her in ways which are relevant to the lives of people in the 21st century through myth, landscape, folklore, spiritual customs, poetry, music and dance.
Her influence is also strong in countries across the world with many events being held to celebrate her feast day.
