Saint Brigid of Kildare

Background:

Brigid of Kildare was an abbess and miracle worker and is one of the national saints of Ireland. If you want a fun look into the various histories and legends of St. Brigid, with special attention given to queer and feminist lenses, I recommend the Queer as Fact podcast episode about her.

Brigid's life is shrouded in myth, but these days it's generally accepted that she was a real person, and not a cynical appropriation of a pagan goddess by Christians. What likely happened is that later chroniclers associated some of the classical attributes of the goddess Brigid with the woman Brigid, in order to boost the legitimacy of the woman Brigid--and also not necessarily as a cynical attempt to "encourage conversion." The early Celtic church was not as institutionalized or dogmatic as the modern Roman Catholic Church, and early on, there was a pretty free exchange of ideas between Christians and pagans. In any case, there are recurring themes in Brigid's legends that help us to get a sense of her as a saint. She performed miracles of healing, helping, and abundance, multiplying things like bacon and butter and feeding the poor with her boundless generosity. She rejected many suitors as well as her father's authority (in one incident stealing his sword while he wasn't looking and giving it to a beggar), and instead shared her life with a woman named Dar Lugdach. In one of her miracles, she also terminated a pregnancy, which in modern times has led to the St. Brigid's cross becoming a pro-choice symbol in Ireland. She is increasingly favored over St. Patrick as the patron of the Irish people, seeing as she was actually Irish and he wasn't. In some of her legends, she is said to have wielded the authority of a bishop in her own right, as well as being the abbess of a convent of nuns who kept an eternal fire burning.

In this icon, I have depicted her in competent middle age as a wise woman or traditional midwife, the specialist practitioner of women's healthcare who could be called upon at all hours to deliver a baby, work a magic spell on behalf of a sick person, or perhaps "restore the menses" of a girl too young to become a mother.

Iconography

• St. Brigid's Cross: this is a traditional handicraft. They are often woven from straw or rushes on St. Brigid's Day and are believed to protect houses for the rest of the year.
• Crozier: carried by Brigid as a symbol of her authority as abbess, but it is also a reminder that she may have wielded the authority of a bishop.