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80 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
Brighid was reputedly born in AD 450, on one of the four great pagan fire days of Ireland, anciently called Oímelg –which meant lactation, February 1st now Lá Féile Bride –St Brighid’s Day, or modern Candlemas, nearly twenty years after Patrick began his missionary labours: she died in A.D. 525, four years after Colm Cille was born.
Incidentally, the other three great Irish fire days are Bealtaine in May, Lughnasa in August, Samhain or Halloween in November. Coincidentally, February 1st was the feast day of the pagan Goddess Bríd- the first Celtic festival of the year. It was the beginning of Spring, the beginning of the working season for farmers and fishermen and a time of husbanding of animals, and to aid them in these labours, the Celts called on Bríd to ‘Watch over the work and in return bonfires were lit to honour her.’
Patroness of farm work and cattle, and protector of the household from fire and calam- ity, Brighid is often called “Mary of the Gael”, and so worshipped and venerated was she at one time that St. Ide, another great Irish foundress who established a celebrated monastery at Cill Ide, present day Killeedy, in west Limerick, is in honour called the “Brighid of Mun- ster”.
In his Short History of the Irish Race, Seamus Mac Manus wrote of her saying:
“As Patrick’s greatness and goodness had brought the slave and swine-herd to be the greatest man in the nation; so, likewise, did Brighid’s greatness and goodness bring her out of bondage to make her the greatest woman in the nation.”
While some tales claim that Brighid was born into an aristocratic family, which is partly true, it is generally believed that the most accurate account of her early days tells that she was in fact born the daughter of a bond-maid, and reared in the house of a druid, close by the present town of Dundalk in county Louth. The story goes that about 450 AD, a child was born out of wedlock to a wealthy and powerful Leinster chieftain named Dubhtach and one of his Christian slaves named Brocessa. Before the birth, the expectant slave-mother was sent to the house of a druid who lived at Faughart, at the foot of the Cooley moun- tains near Dundalk, there to have the child. In due course Brocessa gave birth to a healthy baby girl whom she baptised a Christian. Another version maintains that while still a child Brighid may have encountered St Patrick and that he baptised her. In any case, the birth of this little girl proved to be a disappointment to Dubhtach, who it is told wanted a son, and so enraged was he that he reputedly sold Brocessa to a Chieftain in Connacht and left the child in fosterage to be reared and educated by the druid.
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