Colm O'Regan: St Bridget hoodwinked a king in a land deal, contravening all sorts of planning regulations
Colm O'Regan. Photograph Moya Nolan
So how are you getting on with the new bank holiday? It will take some getting used to. Is it an alcoholiday after Dry January? Having completed Veganuary, are you slathering yourself in sausages?
From now on, this new bank holiday is the first Monday in February or if Brigid’s Day February 1st is a Friday, it will be the Bank Holiday. (An important detail for sesh-specialists)
However, I think February 1st should always be the day off. There are probably capitalist and military-industrial-complex reasons (or maybe just rostering) to round the holiday up or down to the nearest weekend but we don’t seem to have a problem with St Patrick’s Day extending its drunken footprint on the working population so why not Brigid? I think some of the Brigidity has been lost five days later.
It would be a lovely day off. Of course there will be drinking. But it won’t have that Lenten Break feel. For a start, your mam, aunts and granny will be watching you with a “Is THIS what Brigid spread her cloak over Kildare for?” look on their faces. And anyway, they’re off out for the day for some witchy druidy wine event so you’d better have the place nice for when they come back, fluthered and furious, about how the patriarchy co-opted the goddess’s story.
As the day gains momentum over the years, I’ll warn you now, there may be ferocious amounts of ahistorical Celtic shite, people dressed as Maid Marian from the Robin of Sherwood TV series, chanting words that have no basis in anything. But if we’ve no problem with St Patrick's Day parades that recreate on a float, the looting of a Lidl or the stealing of a Cavan ATM, I think we can put up with a few people standing on a hill and saying invocations with loads of thees thous and thines.
Whereas St Patrick’s Day is so adversarial with the shamrock, snake, parades and throwing pagan shade, Brigid’s legends provide more interesting opportunities for commemoration. The making of the cross is almost meditative. Ironically, there’s no rush. The cloak legend (she hoodwinks a king into giving her “as much land as my cloak will cover” and then contravenes all sorts of planning regulations) could be a focal point for repossessing all the derelict buildings in the country.
And whereas St Patrick’s Mass is a recognisable post-Vatican 2 version, why not have a 5th-century version of the mass for St Brigid. Given how skilfully she manoeuvred through the complex in-between transition from indigenous religion to the no-craic version. The renewed interest in her is a great opportunity to find out a bit more about that time. She is supposed to have gone to Glastonbury for heaven’s sake (we presume it was heaven). Patrick just did Croagh Patrick. Or Croagh as it was called then.
With plastic Brigid's Crosses and Kiss Me I’m A for Mixture of Pagan and Early Christian Identity badges on Ali Express. Or else the Celto-bollox Superhero movie can’t be too far away. “With Brigid, Patrick and Colmcille all buried in the one place in Downpatrick, they’re not dead. They’re just waiting for the final battle” (against Balor of the Evil Eye and some edge-lord Big Tech guy who looks like Elon Musk).
Patrick the blustering blowhard, Brigid the wise badass, Colmcille, the sexy wisecracking saint with amazing hair and abs but who will also listen as you talk about your day. Which reminds me, Colmcille’s feast day is June 9th. If that became a festival, it would not make me cross.
