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Written by Tony Hennessy MAGI, a professional genealogist based in Annestown, County Waterford & Dedicated to the memory of his mother Brigid (Breda) Hennessy nee O'Connor (1932-2016) This year marks the first year Ireland will celebrate the day as a public holiday 

Women weaving a Brigid Cross

Every year without fail its welcome arrival brings down the curtain on the darkness of Winter and heralds in the reawakening of the natural world and the promise for us all of the new beginnings and a fresh start. ‘You can never hold back Spring’ as Tom Waits once sang and I suspect that this year, 2023, our collective céad míle fáilte, one hundred thousand welcomes to the new season will be heartfelt indeed.

Here in Ireland, the arrival of Spring has been celebrated for thousands of years. The very ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc is the first of the four great annual festivals of pre-Christian Ireland, the others being Bealtaine, Lughnasadh (Lughnasadh or Lughnasa) and Samhain, associated with the beginnings of Summer, Autumn, and Winter respectively.  The name Imbolc derives from the Old Irish literally meaning ‘in the belly’, referencing the pregnancy of ewes and the lambing season on the way. It was first celebrated at the moveable midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, but it was later fixed at 1st February, now the official first day of Spring, and runs through to sundown the following day.

Associated with the great pagan Goddess Brigid, a very powerful deity of the Tuath De Danann (pictured below), a race of the Mythical Cycle who, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, ruled Ireland from 1897 BC to 1700 BC before descending to the Otherworld. Brigid was the daughter of The Dagda, chief among the Celtic gods.  She has quite a long list of associations: she is the goddess of poets, wisdom, healing, blacksmiths, livestock, crafts, childbirth, and fertility among others. It is said she introduced the custom of keening, a form of ritual lamentation at a funeral, following her own son’s death in battle.

LEARN MORE Got a Brigid or Delia in your family tree? How Irish is the name Brigid? 

A picture of Imbolc celebration also known as Saint Brigid day. It is a tradition festival in Ireland.  Imbolc was first celebrated at the moveable midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, but it was later fixed at 1st February, now the official first day of Spring, and runs through to sundown the following day. Imbolc is associated with the great pagan Goddess Brigid, a very powerful deity of the Tuath De Danann, a race of the Mythical Cycle who, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, ruled Ireland from 1897 BC to 1700 BC before descending to the Otherworld. Brigid was the daughter of The Dagda, chief among the Celtic gods.  She has quite a long list of associations: she is the goddess of poets, wisdom, healing, blacksmiths, livestock, crafts, childbirth and fertility among others. It is said she introduced the custom of keening, a form of ritual lamentation at a funeral, following her own son’s death in battle.

Image: Imbolc Celebration                                                        Image: Tuath De Danann

During Imbolc thanks were given to Brigid and her blessings were sought for the home and for the farm animals for the coming year. Traditionally a little effigy of Brigid called a Brideog, made of oat straw and reeds was made the night before Imbolc and placed in a basket, a tradition still carried on in some parts of Ireland. Another tradition is that straw would be placed at the hearth for the comfort of Brigid when she would kneel to bestow her blessings and some of the straw itself, because of its newly acquired healing properties, could later for instance be placed under the pillow of a sick child to bring them back to good health.

Imbolc is a Fire Festival and lamps were lit and bonfires set ablaze in honour of Brigid and to welcome back the power and heat of the sun after the cold Winter.

A Brigid doll, from Spiddal, County Galway

St. Brigid of Kildare, Ireland

As well as Imbolc the 1st February marks the Feast Day of St. Brigid of Kildare, Lá ’le Bríde in Irish, sometimes known as the Mother Saint of Ireland and one of the three National saints of Ireland, (St. Patrick and St. Columba being the other two). As well as sharing her name and feast day with the goddess Brigid St. Brigid also shares almost all of the goddess’s attributes. 

For this reason there has been open debate for many years as to whether St.Brigid was in fact a real, historical person or whether she was a Christian reimagining of the goddess Brigid.  One school of thought is that St. Brigid was a chief druid at the temple of the goddess Brigid in Co. Kildare and that she converted it into a Christian monastery and that after her death and over time the many stories and characteristics of the goddess were transferred to the saint. 

LEARN MORE Guide to the Irish Name Brigid (Delia)

There were several biographies of St. Brigid (or hagiographies as early ‘lives of the saints’ are called).  These mostly agree that St. Brigid was born in 451AD in Faughart, Co. Louth. Her father was Dubhthach, a Gaelic chieftain of Leinster and her mother was Brocca, a former slave who was baptized by St. Patrick.  The young Brigid had a habit, understandably quite annoying to her parents, of giving away various items from the family household to help the poor; her mother’s full store of butter, her father’s bejewelled sword!

In 480AD or thereabouts St. Brigid founded a monastery in Kildare in the shade of an old oak tree on the site of an earlier pagan shrine to the goddess Brigid. The name in Irish Cill Dara, meaning the ‘the church of the oak’, gave both the town and the county its name.  She was joined initially by seven female followers and this is seen as the first religious community of women in Ireland, with the saint as the first Abbess.  The monastery thrived for many hundreds of years and became a rich centre of learning.  Brigid also founded an art school that included metalwork and illumination and which created the legendary illuminated manuscript the Book of Kildare –‘…the work of angelic and not human skill’. Sadly the Book disappeared during the Reformation in the mid 1500s.  Maybe someday it will turn up again..!  St. Brigid was also famed for her skill with cows, sheep and pigs, a gift she inherited from her mother. She also supposedly had the gift of turning water into beer – useful in any century!

LEARN MORE Guide to Irish Monasteries

One very well known story or miracle associated with St. Brigid relates to an instance when she asked the King of Leinster for some land upon which to build a monastery.  When he refused she reduced the scale of her request asking only for the amount of land that her cloak would cover.  Of course, the king quickly agreed. However, when the cloak was laid on the ground it grew bigger and bigger until it covered the entire Curragh of Kildare!

Today St. Brigid’s place in Irish life remains second only to that of St. Patrick.  On the night before her feast day, some folks will leave out a strip of cloth or scarf, known as Bratóg Bríde, on a bush or tree for St. Brigid to bless as she passes along. The bratóg will be imbued with the power to cure headaches. In the coming days the beautiful and iconic St. Brigid’s Cross, Crosóg Bríde, simply formed with reeds or straw, will be crafted in schools and homes up and down the length and breadth of Ireland.  They will be placed over the door and over the hearth in the home and maybe in the cowhouse and among the sheep too.  They will invoke both the holy power of St. Brigid of Kildare and the magical and mystical power of her pagan predecessor the Celtic Goddess Brigid to ward off evil spirits and bad energy and guard against illness, fire and hunger in the year ahead. In doing so they are continuing an unbroken Irish tradition whose ancient origins are lost through the mists of time.

LEARN MORE Cures & Remedies from Ancient Ireland

Over to you...

Got a 19th-century Brigid or Delia in your family tree? We'd love if you added her to our Ancestors roll-call here:

How to Make a Saint Brigid's Cross

You will need

  • 16 Reeds (or Straws)
  • 4 small rubber bands
  • Sissors

Steps

  1. Hold one of the reeds vertically. Fold a second reed in half as in the diagram.

  2. Place the first vertical reed in the centre of the folded second reed.

  3. Hold the centre overlap tightly between thumb and forefinger.

  4. Turn the two rushes held together 90 degrees anti-clockwise so that the open ends of the second reed are pointing vertically upwards.

  5. Fold a third reed in half and over both parts of the second reed to lie horizontally from left to right against the first straw. Hold tight.

  6. Holding the centre tightly, turn the three reeds 90 degrees anti-clockwise so that the open ends of the third reed are pointing upwards.

  7. Fold a new reed in half over and across all the rushes pointing upwards.

  8. Repeat the process of rotating all the rushes 90 degrees anti-clockwise, adding a new folded reed each time until all rushes have been used up to make the cross.

  9. Secure the arms of the cross with elastic bands. Trim the ends to make them all the same length. The St Bridget’s Cross is now ready to hang.

Step by step instructions for making your cross

Tony Hennessy MAGI is a professional genealogist based in Annestown, Co. Waterford.  Check out Tony’s website www.tonyhennessygenealogy.com or email tony@tonyhennessygenealogy.com for further details.  Tony is a member of Accredited Genealogists Ireland. A SHORT ONLINE COURSE IN IRISH GENEALOGY will commence on Wednesday 21ST Feb. 2024 and will run for 10 weeks, consisting of one 2.5 hour class each Wednesday. The classes will be live via Zoom.

 

 

COURSE CONTENT                                                      SPRING 2024 

 

Each class 2.5 hours with short break in the middle

  •  WEEK 1    Wednesday 21 Feb. - Meet & Greet. Introduction to course.  How to Start Where to Start. Pedigree Sheets and Family Group Sheets
  • WEEK 2   28 Feb. -The Four Pillars of Irish Genealogy:  1. The Census. 1901 & 1911 Censuses + 19th Century fragment
  • WEEK 3    6 MarcH - The Four Pillars of Irish Genealogy:  2. Civil Registration of Births, Deaths & Marriage
  •  WEEK 4    13 March -The Four Pillars of Irish Genealogy:  3. Church records – baptisms, marriages and sometimes burials
  • WEEK 5    20 March -The Four Pillars of Irish Genealogy:  4.  Land records – Griffith’s Valuation & Revision Books, Tithe Applotment Books, Encumbered Estates Records
  • NO CLASS 27 MARCH OR 3 APRIL – EASTER HOLIDAY
  • WEEK 6     10 April -Show and Tell!  Just like you did in Junior Infants
  •  WEEK 7    17 April -Where’s William? - A Case Study of a Military Man
  •  WEEK 8     24 April -How to Draw a Family Tree … without using up four rolls of wallpaper
  •  WEEK 9     1 May -Helping the Emigrant find their way Home - the search for the elusive parish of origin. 
  • WEEK 10    8 May - Revision & Review of course.  Exploring our findings and our family stories

*classes may change in running order or content

 

The course will commence on Wednesday 21 Feb. 2024 and will run for 10 weeks (excluding a two week break at Easter), consisting of one 2.5 hour class, with a short break in the middle. The classes will be live via Zoom but can, if desired, be viewed in one’s own time – see below.

●       The course will be run within a friendly, inclusive and interactive atmosphere and is suitable for both beginners and more advanced students of Irish family history. 

●       The course will not include written assignments. It may be viewed as a hobby course.

●       A certificate of attendance will be available for those who complete the course.

Classes will run from 6.30pm to 9pm GMT each Wednesday.  We all lead busy lives so classes will be video recorded and shared within the group, along with a PDF of the Powerpoint Presentation, in our online ‘classroom’ the following day.  Participants will have the option of watching the video recording and viewing the PDF at their own time and pace.

The course costs €250.  Payment is accepted by bank transfer, Paypal, Revolut or cheque.

Action:

Should you wish to join the course, or have any questions or comments, just drop me an email at waterfordorigins@gmail.com and I will get back to you promptly. 

Should you wish to join the course, view the course content or have any queries, questions or comments (which I welcome) just drop me an email at waterfordorigins@gmail.com and I will get back to you promptly.
Payment made be by bank transfer, Paypal, Revolute or cheque.

A little bit about myself, Tony Hennessy MAGI:

I am a professional genealogist, with almost 40 years experience in the field. 

I have been teaching, for the past ten years, on genealogy courses at University College Cork and University of Limerick.  I have run 10 week evening courses in genealogy in Waterford – and more recently online - since 2010.

I am a member of Accredited Genealogists Ireland, the accrediting body for Irish genealogy, since 2012

I am a member of the National Library of Ireland Genealogy & Heraldry Committee.

I live in Annestown, Co. Waterford with my wife Caroline, three young adult children, some dogs and a cat.  I work from home.

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