ST. BRIDGET
Excerpts from "The Story Of the Irish Race"
By Sean MacManus
FOR four centuries after the Bishop Patrick, setting foot in the country, began scattering far and wide the seeds of the Gospel, the history of the Irish race hangs upon the history of the holy men and women, and the scholars, who continued Patrick's work, at home in Ireland and afar on the Continent of Europe.
And by far the greatest woman in this work was Bridget.
When Patrick rested from his labours it was on Bridget that the seeding sheet was bound. And over the hills and the dales of Ireland then went she, sowing the fruitful words of the new Master to whom Ireland had learnt to bow. And a worthy successor to Patrick was she, Bridget the beloved, Bridget of Eirinn, the Mary of the Gael! In the centre of the trinity of Irish patron saints Patrick, Bridget and Colm Cille, she stands, crowned, the spiritual queen of the race. And warmly and fondly as the memory of the other two great ones is treasured in the Irish heart, it is doubtful if their names evoke the deep, sweet and tender, overwhelming affection that is breathed with the name of Bridget.
But not in Ireland alone is it a living thing, that intimate devotion to her, the woman patron saint of the Gael, but wherever they go and wherever they are they bear in their breast a little flame of the perpetual fire of Kildare. And devotion to her is as sweet and ardent among the simple islanders of Highland Scotland's fjords as it is in the Western Aran, or on the Currach of Kildare. The bare-footed maiden in Uist of Hebrides, driving the cows to pasture, still chants,but in melodious Gaelic:
"The protection of God and Columba,
Encompass your going and coming,
And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palm,
Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown."
Bridget was born just twenty years after the coming of Patrick, about the year 450, at Fochart, near Dundalk. She met and heard Patrick preach. According to an ancient tradition she slept a mystic sleep once, during his preaching at Clooher, and had a symbolic dream in which was shown her the future triumphs, and the future trials of the faith in Ireland. Another tradition has it that she aided in making his winding sheet.
It is the universal Irish claim upon Bridget which has called forth legends giving every quarter of Ireland a proprietary right upon the national treasure. So some traditions would have her born in the house of a Druid, at the court of the chieftain of TirConaill, of a Munster father and Connaught mother, while her future home was to be Leinster.
Bridget's mother appears to have been a bond maid in the house of Bridget's father, Dubtach, who was of royal descent, tenth from King Feidlimid the Lawgiver. And the tradition goes that just before Bridget's birth, her mother, like Hagar, was, through the jealousy of the wife of Dubtach, driven forth upon the world. She was sold into the service of a Druid in whose house Bridget was born, and in whose service she is said to have lived to free her mother.
The Druid, when he had acquired the bondmaid and learnt the cause of her selling foretold to Dubtach: "The seed of thy wife shall serve the seed of the bondmaid, for the bondmaid will bring forth a daughter conspicuous, radiant, who will shine like a sun among the stars."
When the maid, Bridget, a free woman, returned to her father's house, she was so singularly graceful and beautiful, that the fame of her spread far and near. Ardent wooers, in the person of champions, chieftains, young princes in numbers, came to woo her for wife. But she refused them all for she had resolved to be the bride of Christ. This her father did not like much less her stepmother who became intensely jealous of her. But her father's objections increased, and her stepmother's dislike for Bridget multiplied many times, when they discovered that the luxurious excess for which their house had been famed, was melting away, by reason of Bridget's bestowing their substance upon the poor who crowded to her.
At the instigation of his wife, Dubtach, for peace sake had to decide to put Bridget away, just as he had once put away her mother. So he took her with him in his chariot to the Palace of Dunlaing MacEnda, King of Leinster. "It is not for honour or reverence to thee thou art carried in a chariot," he said to her, as they went, "but to take thee to sell thee to grind the quern for Dunlaing MacEnda."
When he reached Dunlaing's residence he left Bridget in the chariot while he went to see the King. But, so notorious had she become for her unstinted giving that he left with her in the chariot nothing which she might in his absence bestow on the poor nothing but his sword. As, however, a leper, coming down the way, begged charity of her, and that she had nothing else to give him, she gave him her father's sword.
When her father returned with Dunlaing MacEnda, and discovered what she had done, he was mightily provoked. He appealed to the King saying: "Thou seest for thyself why I am forced to sell this daughter of mine."
And Dunlaing said to her: "Neither can I take you into my house, for since it is thine own father's wealth that thou takest and givest away, much more wilt thou take my wealth, and my cattle, and give them to the poor."
To which Bridget replied: "The Son of the Virgin knoweth that if I had thy might with all Leinster and all wealth, I would give them to the Lord of the elements."
Then Dunlaing said to Dubtach: "It is not meet for us to deal with this maiden. Her merit before the Lord is higher than ours."
And so was Bridget saved from a second slavery.
She was veiled with seven other virgins by Bishop Macaille whose church was in that part now called Kings County. And the inevitable legends that grew up around all of Ireland's be. loved record that, when she was taking her vows, in the wooden pillar of the altar rail on which she rested her hand the sap circulated and the pillar became green, and bloomed again.
She went into Connaught, where her piety and charity, her faith and her work, were such that she quickly became the most famous personage there. Her Leinster people, learning of her fame, sent to her, besought her to come home to them, and offered a habitation at Kildare to her and the great number of followers she had now gathered around her. Bridget accepted and there then, she founded the Church of the Oak, and founded the Monastery of Kildare which was to be famous for all time. She founded also the little less famous school of Kildare. This was in the latter years of the fifth century.
Her home in Kildare became a centre of religion and of learning, of piety and of lore, whose fame almost rivalled the fame of Patrick's See itself, at Armagh. Great were the crowds that resorted here, not only from all Lein. ster, but from every corner of Ireland. Crowds of poor came seeking material relief; crowds of the pious to satisfy their souls; crowds of students who thirsted for knowledge, all classes came those in wealth and those in want; the humble and the haughty; learned and illiterate; chieftain and bondman, layman and ecclesiastic, all attracted by the piety and wisdom, the goodness and greatness, of the foremost woman of the Gael.
Yet the humility,of this noble woman remained such that oftentimes when the very greatest sought her, they found her not in the hall nor the church, but, though it might be blowing or snowing, off in the fields herding the cattle that gave milk to the monastery, or the sheep that gave them wool.
Once when Bishop Conlaeth (whom she had selected for the See of Kildare) preached to the sisterhood upon the Beatitudes she proposed to the nuns that each sister should take one of the Beatitudes as her special object of devotion, she herself characteristically choosing Mercy.
In those days many Bishops were skilled in trades, which were then considered noble and ennobling. Her bishop Conlaeth was a fine artificer, skilled in doing beautiful work in metal. He is supposed to have taught decorative metal art in the school of Kildare, which was a centre of that art. Here they turned out chalices, bells, patens and shrines, beautifully ornamented.
The art of working in metal was particularly prized in Ireland then: many devoted themselves to it and much tasteful work was produced. Of the multitude of presents that were given to Bridget and her monastery and her church by those who were constantly thronging there, it is recorded that the queen of Crimthann, the son of Enna Ceannselach, gave to Bridget a silver chain of which the Book of Lismore says: "The semblance of a human shape was on one of the ends thereof, and an apple of silver at the other end."
Bridget made many journeys through the south and west of Ireland, consulting, counselling and directing the spiritual leaders, spreading the faith wheresoever she went, and inspiring great numbers to devote themselves to the service of Christ. And wheresoever she was, at home or abroad, crowds of people were constantly thronging to this wonderful woman. The rich came with gifts, the poor came for help; the sick came for healing. She is recorded to have worked many miracles by the power of her surpassing faith, a faith so powerful that it is related that a woman consumptive who touched her shadow was instantly healed. The belief of the people in her power begot many legends, one of these telling us that she was once seen to hang her wet cloak, for drying on a ray of sunshine.
Cogitosus, a monk of Kildare, who in the eighth century wrote the life of Bridget says, "Uncountable were the numbers who flocked to her: the sick for healing; and the rich with gifts."
This was not by any means the first life of Bridget written. Bishop Ultan of Ardbreccain, who is frequently styled a brother of Bridget's, collected the virtues and miracles of Bridget, and commanded his disciple Brogan to put them into poetry.
A wonderful description of Bridget's Church at Kildare is given by Cogitosus which is evidently imaginary of that day, but which Dr. Petrie (in his "Round Towers") affirms was real for Cogitosus' own day. Cogitosus says that in that church in Kildare "repose the bodies of Bishop Conlaeth and his holy virgin, Bridget, on the right and left of the decorated altar, deposited in monuments adorned with various embellishments of gold and silver gems and precious stones, with crowns of gold and silver depending from above, elevated to a menacing height and adorned with painted pictures . . . one partition decorated and painted with figures and covered with linen hangings."
Bridget, it is said, took the Blessed Mother, Mary, as her model. "She was following the manners and the life," says one account, "which the Holy Mother of Jesus had." "It was this Bridget, too," says O'Clery's Martyrology, "that did not take her mind or her attention from the Lord for the space of one hour at any time, but was constantly mentioning Him, and ever constantly thinking of Him. She was hospitable and charitable, and humble, and attended to herding sheep and early rising."
Bridget made Kildare truly great. The old annalists who made a point of recording the names of abbots of monasteries, but not abbesses, always, however made exception to their rule in the case of the abbesses of Kildare. And because of the priority that Bridget's greatness gave it, Kildare's abbess came to be looked up to by all the nuns of Ireland, just as the Primate of Armagh was looked up to by all the clerics.
In her day, because of her power, she ruled the monks of Kildare as well as the nuns. Before she died it was said that as many as thirty religious houses were under her obedience. It is recorded that for nearly a thousand years her name was honoured, and her feast was celebrated, in every Cathedral Church from Grisons to the German Sea. As many as thirty Continental cities are quoted for their devotion, in the middle ages, to Irish Bridget.
Four years after the birth of Colm Cille, Bridget died in 525, leaving Ireland in mourning. And they mourned for Bridget as they had never mourned for any, high or low, simple or gentle, with the possible exception of Patrick. And in the one tomb with Patrick at Down, was interred Ireland's greatest woman, Ireland's Bridget, the Mary of the Gael.
"It was she who never turned her attention from the Lord for one hour, but was constantly meditating and thinking of Him in her heart and mind, as is evident in her own life and in that of St. Brendan, Bishop of Cluain Ferta. She spent her time diligently serving the Lord, performing wonders and miracles, healing every disease and malady, until she resigned her spirit to heaven on the first day of the month of February, and her body was interred at Dun, in the same tomb with St. Patrick, with honour and veneration."
From the Book of Lismore:
"For, everything Bridget asked, the Lord granted at once. For this was her desire: to satisfy the poor; to expel every hardship; to relieve every misery. Now never hath there been any one more bashful, modest, gentle, humble, more sage, more harmonious than Bridget. She was abstinent, innocent, prayerful, patient, glad in God's commandments, firm, humble, forgiving, loving. She was a consecrated casket for holding Christ's Body and Blood. She was a temple of God. She was simple toward God; compassionate toward the wretched; she was splendid in miracles and marvels; where fore her name among created things is like unto a dove among the birds, a vine among trees, the sun among Stars."
"She is the prophetess of Christ: She is the Queen of the South. She is the Mary of the Gael."
Copyright 1921, 1945, 1966 Sean MacManus
The Story of the Irish Race
Published by Devin-Adair
Old Greenwich, Connecticut