Saint Bridgid's day, and music

From Australia to Alaska, through all the counties that make up the island of Ireland, and across the world where Ireland's sons and daughters have made their homes, you will find churches, schools, hospitals, and children named after Saint Bridgid. Though she’s occasionally called Ireland’s second saint -- second to Saint Patrick, that is -- she is as strong is story and legend and as important to the history of Ireland -- and to the women of Ireland -- as Saint Patrick is.

She grew up in Louth, Ireland's smallest county. It is a place filled with mist and mystic landscapes, these days as much as it was in Bridgid’s firth century AD. It is a home of legends from Ireland’s ancient past, a fitting birthplace for a saint whose family included both Christians and followers of the old ways, and whose own legends as the patron of fire and of poetry would borrow from those ancient stories as well.

The first of February is the feast of Saint Bridgid. In Ireland this is marked as the beginning of spring, the turning toward light after winter’s darkness. While the weather in Ireland does not always go along with springtime ideas, there is a change in the light around the beginning of February, a welcome of bright days on the way.

For that reason, Kathleen Conneely’s recording Coming of Spring is a good one to enjoy at this season. The whistle is Conneely’s instrument, and she employs it beautifully through sets of reels and jigs, with a bit of hornpipe and slip jig thrown in, to share of the life and history of Ireland without speaking a word. Growing up in a family who brought their music over to England with them when they came from Ireland, Conneely has tradition in her family and in her heart, and the wisdom of all that comes through in her playing. All of the fourteen sets are well worth your listening -- and Conneely may have you dancing too if that’s your inclination. Standout tracks include the Bonnie Ann set of reels and the Rosemary Lane set of jigs.

There is wisdom in Cathie Ryan’s take on a hymn to Saint Bridgid, as well. On her album The Farthest Wave, she takes the ancient hymn Gabhaim Molta Brighde and has it both reach back across time and be fully present in today’s world by the clarity of her singing and the spare arrangement of the backing on accordion from Scotland’s Phil Cunningham.

you may also wish to see
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain

If you enjoy what you are reading here, check out my newsletter at Substack for more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it.

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Another way to support: you could

Saint Bridgid's Day

There’s an accordion band named after her, hundreds of churches, dozens of schools, several colleges, a well, a sports team or two, songs and hymns, and several roads. One of her shoes is in the national museum of Ireland, and she’s got a myspace page. Today, the first of February, is the feast day of Saint Bridgid.

Bridgid was a contemporary of Saint Patrick, and as with the stories about him, over the decades and centuries her life and work have become entwined with legend, both Christian and pagan. She is, among other things, known as the patron saint of poetry, fire, and song, and there’s a cross woven of rushes with a characteristic shape of a square center that’s become a common Irish symbol and is known as Saint Bridgid’s cross. The symbol itself dates back to pre Christian days, as does the celebration of her feast day as the first day of spring in Ireland -- a day that’s more often accompanied by snow and rain than by spring like weather, but which does mark the turing of days from shorter to longer times of daylight.

Bridgid is the patron saint of Kildare, where she founded an abbey. She was born in Louth, where a well bears her name, and founded convents in Roscommon and Armagh, as well as other places. The churches, roads, schools, and sports teams are found, as the saying goes, wherever green is worn, from Australia to the Yukon.

here’s an article commenting on the pagan a Christian stories about Saint Bridgid...and did you know the word for jazz has its origins in Irish?

here, how to weave a Saint Bridgid's cross

Phil Cunnngham on accordion and Cathie Ryan on vocals on the hymn to Saint Bridgid, Gabhaim molta Bhrigide, sung in Irish.