Re-inventing Brigid, the New Irish Cult of the Absurd

The Blank Canvass Effect in Woke Ireland

Introduction

Last year Irish people were granted a new Public holiday to celebrate the Irish Female Patron Saint, St Brigid. It seemed like a good thing to do. As a child in school, I can clearly remember, we would gather reeds from a boggy field nearby my primary school and then take them back to cut and bend them into the traditional St Brigid’s Cross. This would be placed high up in the house, like an alter, and would stay until time and heat dyed it from its initial luscious green to a more mature crispy straw-yellow. It all seemed very wholesome, surely a new public holiday celebrating this could only be a good thing. Sadly, in modern Ireland, as is often the case nowadays, all is not as it seems.

St Brigid and Brid

Best to start with some history as to this important Saint. Very little is actually known about St Brigid but from available sources there is something of a picture we can create of her life and goals. First of all, it can be agreed that she was a nun and that she lived in the 5th Century. There are two important sources here, both from the 7th Century : the Hiberno-Latin Vita S. Brigitae by Cogitosus, a monk from Kildare, and the anonymous Vita Prima S. Brigitae. Both, being somewhat anecdotal, they are inclined to somewhat embellish and mythologise her story leading us to doubt the specifics of her life and the stories associated with her but nonetheless both serve as strong evidence for her real historical existence, especially considering the chronological proximity that they were written to her lifetime. ¹

Without going into great detail on the above, it is fair to say that she was a Catholic Nun leading an Abbot which she founded in Kildare. A devotional cult grew around her which was common with religious figures at the time. Being an Abbot and a nun it is fairly reasonable to assume that she would have kept the duties and roles of a nun, especially in the exemplary role she inhabited. That is to say she, without any doubt, would have lived a traditional and chaste life which was solely devoted to Christianity. This much is clear, or so you would think. So far, so blatantly obvious.

Then, here's the rub. There was also, or so it seems, an Irish Pagan Goddess that predates Brigid who was called, confusingly and similarly, Brid. Very little is known about this Goddess and, in fact, the first documented mentions of her come a lot later than the sources for St Brigid: some two hundred years later in fact in the writings of Cormac (9th Century). She is described as a poetic and artistic deity. There is then no mention of her until a text that appears some three hundred years later. Not exemplary evidence however and also, of note, there is no solid archaeological evidence at all for this Pagan Goddess, almost nothing.² The significance of this is that there is little doubt as to the historicity of the Catholic Saint Brigid whereas a Pagan goddess of the name Brid is, to say the least, of very uncertain provenance. Both are clearly not interchangeable as we can infer. As Dr Wycherley, a medieval historian at Maynooth University and the foremost authority on Brigid says : “The whole goddess thing makes medieval historians uncomfortable because we don't have historical evidence that they had an actual goddess Brigid in Ireland, but there is evidence in other places of a goddess called Brigantia.”³

The re-invention of a tradition

“All’s changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.”

To best understand what this day, which celebrates St Brigid, is becoming let me start with some insightful quotes from contemporary and official websites celebrating their unique interpretations of that she stood for. Let’s start from basic observations. Brace yourself, I’ll begin with quotes from “I am Brigid”, an official Irish Government website.

"We share many of the same stories and lore clustered about her in both the oral and written traditions. She was an embodiment of neolithic matriarchal power before the rise of the patriarchy. She offers an opportunity to find integration and balance in our understanding of our place in nature. "

“My deepest wish for what St Brigid’s Day might offer is for all of us to affirm and cherish female power in our communities, to celebrate what Brigid stands for — poetry, healing, wells, our resources and inner journeys — to assert the value of an egalitarian society that respects its creatives, to safeguard the hard won rights of women and girls especially in education and bodily autonomy, and to strive for a safer, more loving world for all.”⁴

From RTE, the Irish state funded TV service, we can read how (here there is no distinction made between the goddess and saint that):

“She was a spirited youth activist, feminist and environmentalist who fearlessly championed the rights of the poor and animals.”⁵

Let us consider the Irish Times, the main independent broadsheet in Ireland:

“Her patronage befits an Ireland that honours bodily autonomy, as her miracles include rescuing a woman from an unwanted pregnancy. She offers inspiration especially for Ireland’s Catholics, who have urged reform on multiple fronts, with 96 per cent favouring female ordination.”

It continues:

“Yet boundaries can’t confine her. Born of a king and a slave and raised by a druid, Brigid integrates opposites and stands as the sister of all, regardless of class, ethnicity or religious affiliation. She fights especially for the vulnerable and oppressed and helps the abused heal as she holds abusers to account.”⁶

So to summarize, on the balance of no evidence whatsoever and, in fact, with all reasonable evidence and assumptions to the contrary, Saint Brigit is claimed to be, in her role as an early medieval Irish Catholic Nun: pro-abortion, anti-patriarchy, a nature worshipper, a modern day feminist, an environmental activist and a youth activist. Are we missing something out here? Why, yes of course. Here we are, to complete the rebranding:

“Brigit is at home on the gender continuum; her depiction by Cogitosus rejects an essentialist gender binary.”⁷

Of course it does, how remis of me, she was also a trans and non-binary activist. I’m very sure that the 7th Century Latin scholar and monk Cogitosus did see her as transcending the gender spectrum at the time, despite such a thing neither existing nor being even conceivable . Yes, according to the new state backed historical revisionism, the Traditional Nun/non-existent Goddess was all these things in 6th Century Medieval Ireland. To use a famous quote from a book that it could reasonably be inferred the real Saint may have been aware of, that is, The Bible (however nowadays this is considered questionable as she was perhaps too busy trying to take down the medieval patriarchy and get her fellow peasants to go easy on the peat fires for the sake of the environment to read it): “Jesus wept”.

The idea that there was a Catholic Nun who had great, awe inspiring self discipline, who devoted her life and activity to more than material objects and self-promotion and who was so successful in her endeavours and her conversion of multitudes of people to Catholicism that she was recognised as a Saint does not seem to be reason enough to celebrate here. Nor are her reported miracles or her over one and a half thousand year strong devotional following. None of the reasons that any given historical Irish person worshiped and respected her are considered worthy. All that matters is moulding her into a radical 21st century forth wave feminist, nothing else will do.

What we have is a new devotional cult subscribing to what is called the naturalist fallacy, where organized religion, particularly and exclusively of the Christian kind, is seen as bad, and all that came before it is seen as more natural and thus good. A recapitulation of Rosseau's “noble savage” idea mixed with Crowley’s neopagan Thelema, which purposely mystifies this pre-Christian world. The noble savage is now not only seen as superior but in the blank canvas that they inhabit, due to the dearth of historical accounts and facts, they are also deemed to espouse any number, or all, in the case of St Bridget, of the post-modern ever expanding views of what is deemed progressive. Throw Marxism and its intersectionality into the mix and then you get the mass of confusion that highlights the essence of the re-invention.

A Reality Check

Despite little to no evidence of her existence, Brid is also now said to be the progressive feminist Goddess who's majesty was overthrown by a boring conservative Nun. Let us examine this. Let us assume the Goddess did exist, would such a Goddess inhabiting the pre-Christian Irish world espouse all these suggested radical feminist ideas on the balance of evidence? To answer this question, let us consider, if only for a moment, the reality of pre-Christian Ireland. Evidence is difficult to find but we have pointers to suggest how life was at this time from written accounts and importantly from archaeological sources.

For the modern neo-pagan hoards one question worth asking is if they are planning on celebrating the human(and animal) sacrifice of both children and adults? Human sacrifice was seemingly a very common practice at the time. The cult movie, “The Wickerman” with the Wicker effigy, with people burnt alive inside as part of a ceremony, has a lot of historical evidence: it definitely happened, as the director of the movie Robin Hardy knew very well from his extensive research on the subject.⁸ There is also the evidence of the bog bodies found in Ireland and Celtic Europe. Almost without exception these bodies show signs of deliberate death and sacrificial torture. Examples include Rath na Rí on the Hill of Tara where evidence of both human and animal sacrifice was discovered and Loughnashade where multiple severed heads were discovered which show evidence for a pre-Christian head cult. There is also strong evidence that Celtic warriors would collect the decapitated heads of their enemies and, it is suggested, keep them embalmed on alters.⁹

The evidence for them smashing the patriarchy and being environmentalists fighting against an industrialism that would take millennia to develop or of being trans activists is somewhat lacking yet should someone discover evidence to the contrary I am happy to stand corrected. Women in pre-Christian Ireland were, much like all other societies at the time without much exception, seen as lower than men and were expected to devote themselves to such a role. None of this is contentious, it is recognised almost without exception in all such societies. There is nothing to suggest the role of women in Ireland in Pagan times was in anyway unique with some exceptions noticeable in the Brehon law(The Irish Celtic legal system) regarding divorce under specific circumstances. In fact, it seems from available evidence that with the Christianization of Ireland and the associated changes in Brehon law, women actually gained more rights than before which clearly contradicts the neopagan assertions regarding this. ¹⁰

As for pronouns, I imagine these would have been less important in a culture without written words. However there would have been great equality and equity in who they chose to sacrifice to their chosen goddess or cause. Had Brid existed it is quite likely that rather than being a modern feminist icon, she would have had a strong and regular sacrificial aspect to her for which “my body, my choice” would have taken an entirely new meaning. Yet, in the blank canvas that aspects of Pre-Christian Ireland provides, fantastical interpretations can dominate much like, although far more interestingly, they do with stories of Egyptian history and who or what made the ancient pyramids. The fantastical, utilize such blank canvasses knowing their hypotheses will be hard, if impossible, to ever disprove.

"Saint Brigid", illumination from the manuscript "Ruskin Hours", ms. Ludwig IX 3, f. 106v, ca. 1300, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Early Christian Ireland, the land of saints and scholars

It is interesting to note that Ireland took to Christianity with a particular vigour and that the conversion was certainly a willing and active one. People actively embraced Christianity and Ireland went on to develop significantly in terms of its arts and culture with world renowned achievements leading to it being recognised as The Land of Saints and Scholars. One could even argue that this was the peak of Irish cultural development with such artefacts as the Book of Kells and the Ardagh Chalice. It is fair to say that all Irish cultural achievements and renown originate and stem from this early era of learned and literary Catholic monastic communities which, it must be said as an important reminder, also had great female nunneries. As an interesting aside, it is said, and with some evidence, that one of the greatest losses of Irish Christian culture was the Book of Kildare which came from none other than Saint Brigid’s monastery and was described by the Norman scribe, Giraldus Cambrensis, of being of such beauty that it “things must have been the result of the work, not of men, but of angels.” Sadly this book has been lost during the Norman invasions.¹¹

Conclusion

In a modern Irish society, which is rapidly becoming a post-religious culture, it seems St Brigid’s day has, in parallel to this social development, swiftly become a vessel for a new resurgent movement. We have a multitude of people, all highly educated and advanced by an education that comes from their Catholic intellectual inheritance, who now seek to reject all this, in adopting a pre-Christian deity for which almost nothing is known. It thus serves as a blank canvas for the promotion of the post modern confusion syndrome also known as “wokeness” in addition to a vague neopaganism which is based on free expression of will and desire for its own sake. Barbaric societies are seen as praiseworthy and are fantasized into being harbingers for values that would have been utterly incomprehensible to them. The truth doesn’t matter but what is important is feeling and fantasy. Sadly, the very same values of feeling and fantasy are the exact ones that have historically led societies to massacre and to commit actions like human sacrifices. In a lot of the Goddess is good and the nun bad dialogue it is also worth highlighting the unquestioned bias and deep seated misogyny inherent in the idea that a women who devotes their life, through exercising her individual autonomy, to God and religion is a slave whereas a women who devotes her life to a corporate structures and politics and certain tickbox roles is deemed to be free. Women, it seems, are only free if they make the correct decisions that other women (and actually often men) think they should make. A most unusual form of freedom this. St Brigid is thus historically seen as a powerful women, a key part of Irish history and cultural development, but for a modern audience she is simply not the right kind of woman. The imaginary Brid is best placed to fulfil this role.

Given the trajectory of the last decade I can only see St Brigid's day degenerating deeper into it’s fanatical fantasy. Sad, as it would be a great opportunity for the land of Saints and Scholars to reflect on it’s inherited qualities of learning and art and morality and also as a time for recognition of the key role women played, and continue to play, in this development. St Brigid was perhaps Ireland’s most powerful women who used her power to change the entire culture of the Island for millennia. Her personal strength and devotion and ability to influence others towards what she believed in would be incomprehensible to a modern audience. Let us not forget her benevolence also which shines through the stories of her life. This supplantation, more so than anything however, can and should serve as an example of what Ireland has lost, a key connection to the old world values and devotion and of a connection with a world beyond the obvious and material which has always sustained those though sorrow and hardship on the rainy western Isle. Yet all this will of course fall on deaf ears as the historical Saint will become less important and her imaginary Goddess reinvention, with its forced message of radical woke ideas and, crucially, unexamined themes, will continue apace.

1. Project MUSE - Making St Brigit real in the early middle ages (jhu.edu)

1. Brigid, a thoroughly modern 1,500-year-old saint – The Irish Times

2.

3. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-41060222.html

4. I am Brigid | St Brigid's Day 2023 | Ireland.ie

5. Herstory: Facts, stories and legends about Brigid

6. Brigid, a thoroughly modern 1,500-year-old saint – The Irish Times

7. Project MUSE - Making St Brigit real in the early middle ages

8. ‘The Wicker Man’: The True Nature of Sacrifice • Cinephilia & Beyond

9. https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-20166426.html

10. http://womeninhistory.scoilnet.ie/content/unit1/law.html

11. https://kildarelibraries.ie/ehistory/book-of-kildare-not-the-work-of-men-but-of-angels/