The most beloved female saint of Ireland, Brigid was born about 452 in Faughart, County Louth, Ireland, the daughter of Dubhthach, a pagan Leinster chieftain, and Brocca, a Christian slave. In many ways, she was a liminal figure, a transitional bridge between pre-Christian and Christian Ireland. Her “lives” indicate that she was educated by a Druid. It has even been suggested that she may have been the last high priestess of the goddess Brigid, the most beloved of Celtic deities. The site that she eventually chose as her headquarters, Kildare, (“Church by the oak”) had been the location of a pre-Christian fire temple – similar to the temple of Vesta in Rome – whose perpetual fire had been tended by nineteen priestesses in rotation. It was regarded as the hearth of Ireland; and Brigid was goddess of healing, therapy, and creativity, maternity of mothers, sheep, and cows, and waters. Her namesake, St. Brigid converted to Christianity when she was still a young woman. She and seven of her female associates went to her friend, St. Mel, bishop of Ardagh, requesting that he veil them as nuns.
According to more than one version of the story, when Brigid’s turn came to be veiled, Mel “accidentally” ordained her a bishop. When he was questioned about this, he never denied it, but had several explanations– among them that he did it under the prompting of the Holy Spirit and that, henceforth, no future abbess of Kildare would be raised to the office of bishop – which rather begs the question. It is certainly true that her successor abbesses of Kildare had enormous spiritual power down to the time of the Reformation. Until then, the abbesses of Kildare and St. Brigid’s in Douglas, the Isle of Man, were both considered barons in the British House of Lords. It was decided at the Synod of Kells in 1152 – the first in Ireland ordered by an English Archbishop of Canterbury - that whenever in the future Irish bishops sat in council, they were no longer required to sit at the feet of the abbess of Kildare. They had previously done this since the time of Brigid’s death.
So is the story about Brigid’s ordination pure myth? If indeed she had been, in her earlier life, chief priestess of the most beloved goddess in Ireland, then, when she converted and became a nun, it could have been perceived as a downward shift for Irish observers who were not yet Christian. It could be that, knowing this, St. Mel elevated her to the Christian equivalent of her former level of prowess in order to clear away one problem to the process of people’s conversion.
Founded by Brigid around 470, Kildare was a large establishment, a double monastery for both men and women living in separate communities. They worshipped in a large wooden chapel, whose description in the earliest life of Brigid makes it the most remarkable chapel in Ireland at that time. Brigid was especially renowned for her wisdom, her graciousness, her hospitality, and her healing abilities. Kildare developed into a center of learning and spirituality, and around it grew a cathedral city. She founded a school of art there, and its illuminated manuscripts became famous, notably the Book of Kildare, which was praised as one of the finest of all illuminated Irish manuscripts before its disappearance three centuries ago.
Kildare was also famous for its metalwork. Brigid was one of the most remarkable women of her times. There is no doubt of her extraordinary spirituality, boundless charity, compassion for those in distress, and her miracle-working abilities. She appointed St. Conleth to help her guide and govern the men. His successor bishops of Kildare continued, along with the abbesses, to govern the church of Kildare throughout the centuries. Brigid died February 1, 525, and was buried in her chapel. When Conleth died, he was buried on the other side of the main altar in the same chapel, which became a great place of pilgrimages.
In 878, after Kildare was pillaged on several occasions by the Vikings, Brigid’s bones were brought to Down, where they were reburied, together with St. Patrick and St. Columba of Iona, whose bones were already there. These remains were “discovered” and disinterred by the Normans on June 9, 1185, after which they were placed in three fine shrines in Down Cathedral.
Throughout the centuries, in Brigid’s memory, her nuns kept her perpetual fire burning in an open-air fire temple, which was adjacent to the cathedral. They followed the pre-Christian custom of 19 attendants, rotating in sequence. Men were not allowed near the fire. This continued until the fire was extinguished in 1540 by order of Archbishop George Browne of Dublin as a component of Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. The site of the fire temple was excavated in 1988 by order of St. Brigid’s Church of Ireland Cathedral. Then, in 1992, two Brigidine nuns, Mary Minnehan and Phil O’Shea returned to Kildare and rekindled the fire on St. Brigid’s Day (February 1) in the fire temple as a component of a Peace and Justice Conference. They have done this annually to this day. They keep the fire continually burning at Solas Bridhe, their Celtic spirituality center, in Kildare.
In Armagh, there was an “exemplum Bridigis”, also known as “Regeles Brigid”, a chapel which cherished some relics of St, Brigid. It was destroyed in 1179 by William FitzAldhelm. In 1283, three Irish knights traveling to the Aragonese Crusade were carrying with them a portion of the skull of St. Brigid, brought from Armagh. When they arrived in Lisbon, they gave it to King Dinis, who entrusted it to the church of St. John the Baptist in Lumiar, a Lisbon suburb. This relic is honored in the church to this day. In 1538, the graves of Patrick, Brigid, and Columba at Down were opened and desecrated by order of Lord Leonard Gray, as a component of King Henry VIII’s campaign against shrines and relics. In 1586, subsequent to the desecration of graves in Down, some rescued relics of Brigid were brought to Cologne to a church dedicated to her.
After this church was destroyed by occupying French forces in 1806, the relics were transferred to the Monastery of St. Martin of Tours in the same city. In 1587, Emperor Rudolf II gave a skull of St. Brigid, which had been honored in a chapel in Neustadt, to Don Juan de Borgia, son of St. Francis Borgia. Along with other major relics, he presented it to Sao Roque, the Jesuit Church in Lisbon. This skull is still present in the church, but it is very likely a different Irish St. Brigid (there were a few: it was a popular name).
Another important relic of St. Brigid is a portion of her mantle, which was given by the abbess of Kildare to the future King Harold of England while he was staying in Ireland, prior his coronation. After he died in the Battle of Hastings in 1066, his mother Gytha and his sister Gunhild brought the relic, along with the family jewels, to Bruges, in Flanders. They gave them to the cathedral; and the mantle can still be viewed there to this day. A small portion of it can be found here in the Shrine of All Saints.
The rib of St. Brigid which just arrived at the Shrine of All Saints came from the palace of the Orsini Pignatelli family in Gravina, Italy. This relic belonged to Brigida Elisa Maria Sylos—Pignatelli who died in 1967. She received it as a gift from a relative who lived in Strasbourg, France. It was originally sealed in a beautiful reliquary made of solid gold, which was destroyed or melted down to obtain the precious metal and placed in its current reliquary tube and resealed April 11, 1936 by Bishop Agostino Zampini, OSA, first vicar general of Vatican City.
The Irish have been present in Strasbourg, Alsace, for a very long time; and the Irish saint most widely honored in Alace is Brigid, not Patrick. St. Columban (540-615) passed through the town with his group of missionaries. His name is associated there with the church of St. Peter “the Young”. By the end of his life, he had evangelized and established monasteries in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Wherever he went, he spread devotion to St. Brigid. This can also be said for many of the Irish missionaries who lived and preached in the area, as well as in Brittany and the Low Countries.
A group of Irish monks following the Rule of Columban were granted the island of Honau – Hoghe Aue, the upper isle, Latinized “Honaugia” – in the year 722. The donor, in accordance with his Franconian overlords was Alabert, Alemannic ruler of the dynasty of Eticho. Tradition affirms that it was the Irish Saint Erhard (regional bishop of Regensburg, d. 686), through his connections with the Alsatian Etichon dynasty, who brought about this donation, and that Erhard himself presented relics of Saint Brigid to the Columban island community on its foundation. He also deposited relics of the saint in Strasbourg, thirteen kilometers away. (Ni Mheara, Roisin, ”In Search of Irish Saints” Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1994. P. 95.)
Because of the Rhine flooding Honau, in 1290, the monks were forced to flee to Rheinau, only to suffer the same fate again in 1348. By this time, the monks were Augustinians.
. . . those Honau refugees eventually landed, together with the shrines of their holy abbots and other relics – in the church of Strasbourg’s “Old Saint Peter”. A short walk along the quay brings to the one-time collegiate church that offered an end to that Odyssey in the year 1348, after the second island of the Honau monks as undermined by currents of the Rhine . . . With the monks, her (Brigid’s) cult came to this church, together with some treasured relic. We cannot however accept that this was her “head”, or that the skull revered in the Catholic part of the church (now serving two denominations) belongs to Brigid! If we allow for the possibility of St. Gall and St. Erhard bringing relics from Kildare to these parts in early times, it would be preposterous to suppose that anything as important as her head would have been taken from its sepulcher before Viking depredations of the 9th century made the removal of the saint’s remains necessary – by which time the Irish monks were well established in the island of Honau! During the French Revolution, the treasures of Old St. Peter’s were robbed, the contents of the gold and silver reliquaries scattered. Hidden and later restored to these altars, what remains of these relics was exposed again to veneration by the bishop of Strasbourg in 1806. Among them in its new reliquary, the “head” of St. Brigid should be treated with reserve.
But it is quite likely that the other relics in Old St. Peter’s – our rib among them - are authentic bones of St. Brigid, brought there from Kildare. Placed near her relic in our Shrine is a 17th century statue of St. Brigid, hand carved in Flanders.
According to more than one version of the story, when Brigid’s turn came to be veiled, Mel “accidentally” ordained her a bishop. When he was questioned about this, he never denied it, but had several explanations– among them that he did it under the prompting of the Holy Spirit and that, henceforth, no future abbess of Kildare would be raised to the office of bishop – which rather begs the question. It is certainly true that her successor abbesses of Kildare had enormous spiritual power down to the time of the Reformation. Until then, the abbesses of Kildare and St. Brigid’s in Douglas, the Isle of Man, were both considered barons in the British House of Lords. It was decided at the Synod of Kells in 1152 – the first in Ireland ordered by an English Archbishop of Canterbury - that whenever in the future Irish bishops sat in council, they were no longer required to sit at the feet of the abbess of Kildare. They had previously done this since the time of Brigid’s death.
So is the story about Brigid’s ordination pure myth? If indeed she had been, in her earlier life, chief priestess of the most beloved goddess in Ireland, then, when she converted and became a nun, it could have been perceived as a downward shift for Irish observers who were not yet Christian. It could be that, knowing this, St. Mel elevated her to the Christian equivalent of her former level of prowess in order to clear away one problem to the process of people’s conversion.
Founded by Brigid around 470, Kildare was a large establishment, a double monastery for both men and women living in separate communities. They worshipped in a large wooden chapel, whose description in the earliest life of Brigid makes it the most remarkable chapel in Ireland at that time. Brigid was especially renowned for her wisdom, her graciousness, her hospitality, and her healing abilities. Kildare developed into a center of learning and spirituality, and around it grew a cathedral city. She founded a school of art there, and its illuminated manuscripts became famous, notably the Book of Kildare, which was praised as one of the finest of all illuminated Irish manuscripts before its disappearance three centuries ago.
Kildare was also famous for its metalwork. Brigid was one of the most remarkable women of her times. There is no doubt of her extraordinary spirituality, boundless charity, compassion for those in distress, and her miracle-working abilities. She appointed St. Conleth to help her guide and govern the men. His successor bishops of Kildare continued, along with the abbesses, to govern the church of Kildare throughout the centuries. Brigid died February 1, 525, and was buried in her chapel. When Conleth died, he was buried on the other side of the main altar in the same chapel, which became a great place of pilgrimages.
In 878, after Kildare was pillaged on several occasions by the Vikings, Brigid’s bones were brought to Down, where they were reburied, together with St. Patrick and St. Columba of Iona, whose bones were already there. These remains were “discovered” and disinterred by the Normans on June 9, 1185, after which they were placed in three fine shrines in Down Cathedral.
Throughout the centuries, in Brigid’s memory, her nuns kept her perpetual fire burning in an open-air fire temple, which was adjacent to the cathedral. They followed the pre-Christian custom of 19 attendants, rotating in sequence. Men were not allowed near the fire. This continued until the fire was extinguished in 1540 by order of Archbishop George Browne of Dublin as a component of Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. The site of the fire temple was excavated in 1988 by order of St. Brigid’s Church of Ireland Cathedral. Then, in 1992, two Brigidine nuns, Mary Minnehan and Phil O’Shea returned to Kildare and rekindled the fire on St. Brigid’s Day (February 1) in the fire temple as a component of a Peace and Justice Conference. They have done this annually to this day. They keep the fire continually burning at Solas Bridhe, their Celtic spirituality center, in Kildare.
In Armagh, there was an “exemplum Bridigis”, also known as “Regeles Brigid”, a chapel which cherished some relics of St, Brigid. It was destroyed in 1179 by William FitzAldhelm. In 1283, three Irish knights traveling to the Aragonese Crusade were carrying with them a portion of the skull of St. Brigid, brought from Armagh. When they arrived in Lisbon, they gave it to King Dinis, who entrusted it to the church of St. John the Baptist in Lumiar, a Lisbon suburb. This relic is honored in the church to this day. In 1538, the graves of Patrick, Brigid, and Columba at Down were opened and desecrated by order of Lord Leonard Gray, as a component of King Henry VIII’s campaign against shrines and relics. In 1586, subsequent to the desecration of graves in Down, some rescued relics of Brigid were brought to Cologne to a church dedicated to her.
After this church was destroyed by occupying French forces in 1806, the relics were transferred to the Monastery of St. Martin of Tours in the same city. In 1587, Emperor Rudolf II gave a skull of St. Brigid, which had been honored in a chapel in Neustadt, to Don Juan de Borgia, son of St. Francis Borgia. Along with other major relics, he presented it to Sao Roque, the Jesuit Church in Lisbon. This skull is still present in the church, but it is very likely a different Irish St. Brigid (there were a few: it was a popular name).
Another important relic of St. Brigid is a portion of her mantle, which was given by the abbess of Kildare to the future King Harold of England while he was staying in Ireland, prior his coronation. After he died in the Battle of Hastings in 1066, his mother Gytha and his sister Gunhild brought the relic, along with the family jewels, to Bruges, in Flanders. They gave them to the cathedral; and the mantle can still be viewed there to this day. A small portion of it can be found here in the Shrine of All Saints.
The rib of St. Brigid which just arrived at the Shrine of All Saints came from the palace of the Orsini Pignatelli family in Gravina, Italy. This relic belonged to Brigida Elisa Maria Sylos—Pignatelli who died in 1967. She received it as a gift from a relative who lived in Strasbourg, France. It was originally sealed in a beautiful reliquary made of solid gold, which was destroyed or melted down to obtain the precious metal and placed in its current reliquary tube and resealed April 11, 1936 by Bishop Agostino Zampini, OSA, first vicar general of Vatican City.
The Irish have been present in Strasbourg, Alsace, for a very long time; and the Irish saint most widely honored in Alace is Brigid, not Patrick. St. Columban (540-615) passed through the town with his group of missionaries. His name is associated there with the church of St. Peter “the Young”. By the end of his life, he had evangelized and established monasteries in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Wherever he went, he spread devotion to St. Brigid. This can also be said for many of the Irish missionaries who lived and preached in the area, as well as in Brittany and the Low Countries.
A group of Irish monks following the Rule of Columban were granted the island of Honau – Hoghe Aue, the upper isle, Latinized “Honaugia” – in the year 722. The donor, in accordance with his Franconian overlords was Alabert, Alemannic ruler of the dynasty of Eticho. Tradition affirms that it was the Irish Saint Erhard (regional bishop of Regensburg, d. 686), through his connections with the Alsatian Etichon dynasty, who brought about this donation, and that Erhard himself presented relics of Saint Brigid to the Columban island community on its foundation. He also deposited relics of the saint in Strasbourg, thirteen kilometers away. (Ni Mheara, Roisin, ”In Search of Irish Saints” Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1994. P. 95.)
Because of the Rhine flooding Honau, in 1290, the monks were forced to flee to Rheinau, only to suffer the same fate again in 1348. By this time, the monks were Augustinians.
. . . those Honau refugees eventually landed, together with the shrines of their holy abbots and other relics – in the church of Strasbourg’s “Old Saint Peter”. A short walk along the quay brings to the one-time collegiate church that offered an end to that Odyssey in the year 1348, after the second island of the Honau monks as undermined by currents of the Rhine . . . With the monks, her (Brigid’s) cult came to this church, together with some treasured relic. We cannot however accept that this was her “head”, or that the skull revered in the Catholic part of the church (now serving two denominations) belongs to Brigid! If we allow for the possibility of St. Gall and St. Erhard bringing relics from Kildare to these parts in early times, it would be preposterous to suppose that anything as important as her head would have been taken from its sepulcher before Viking depredations of the 9th century made the removal of the saint’s remains necessary – by which time the Irish monks were well established in the island of Honau! During the French Revolution, the treasures of Old St. Peter’s were robbed, the contents of the gold and silver reliquaries scattered. Hidden and later restored to these altars, what remains of these relics was exposed again to veneration by the bishop of Strasbourg in 1806. Among them in its new reliquary, the “head” of St. Brigid should be treated with reserve.
But it is quite likely that the other relics in Old St. Peter’s – our rib among them - are authentic bones of St. Brigid, brought there from Kildare. Placed near her relic in our Shrine is a 17th century statue of St. Brigid, hand carved in Flanders.
Contact us |
connect with us ON SOCIAL MEDIA |
Search Our Site |
THE SHRINE OF ALL SAINTS
|
Site powered by The Archdiocese of Chicago
|
©2026 The Shrine of All Saints
|