Abbess of Kildare and one of Ireland's three patron saints. Her monastery was a double house of women and men, unusual anywhere in Europe, and a perpetual fire burned there in her honour — Gerald of Wales saw it tended by nineteen nuns in the 12th century; the flame was restored in 1993. Her feast falls on Imbolc, the old first day of spring, and the goddess Brigid whose day it was governed poetry, smithcraft and healing. Where one ends and the other begins is a question scholars have never settled.
Worth knowing
Since 2023 her feast has been a public holiday in the Republic — the first Irish public holiday named for a woman.
The same day
This feast falls on Imbolc, one of the four
quarter days of the old Irish year — spring begins.
