Wander Woman Extra: Would the real Brigid please stand up?

Celtic goddess? Catholic Saint? Or master beer brewer? February 1st marks St Brigid's Day – as well as the pagan festival of Imbolc, which elebrates the coming of spring, which the Irish Government have declared to be a public holiday.
But who was the Brigid behind Ireland's female patron saint? The stories are many - from the igniter of an eternal flame, protector of the earth, the environment and animals; to the girl who gave away her father's sword to the poor so that they could sell it for food; and the saint who manage to claim The Curragh lands under her mythical cloak . And did we mention the woman who brewed enough beer to satiate her entire parish of 18 churches in a single pot?
Fascinated by this indisputable Wander Woman, adventurer Phoebe Smith heads to Kildare in Ireland (just a 30 minute train ride from Dublin), in association with Tourism Ireland, to go on the St Brigid Trail in a mission to find out who she really was. There's reed weaving, well visiting, storytelling and - of course - ale tasting. Come wander with her...

www.Phoebe-Smith.com; @PhoebeRSmith

Transcript

The Mystery of St. Brigid

Speaker 1 0:00

On this special episode of the Wander Woman podcast .

Speaker 2 0:03

She really believed that if she brewed a lake of beer it would solve the problems of the world .

Speaker 1 0:08

I go to Kildare in association with Tourism Ireland in search of the real woman behind the legend of St Brigid .

Speaker 3 0:15

Some people see Bridget only as a goddess . Some people see the Bridget the saint as just an embodiment of the goddess . So , as one of the historians said , she's malleable .

Speaker 1 0:28

I try reed weaving with a history lesson , on the side with one of the last Brigidene sisters of Kildare , and I hear the many facets of the woman believed to have inspired the legend of Ireland's only female patron saint .

Speaker 4 0:41

he's linked to Smithcraft , blacksmiths , poetry , sustainability , is obviously a charismatic female leader , kindness , peace .

Speaker 1 0:51

You're listening to an extra bonus episode of the Wander Woman podcast , an audio travel magazine . With me , adventurer Phoebe Smith exploring off-the-beaten track destinations , responsible travel , wildlife encounters and the unsung heroes behind conservation efforts . Come wonder with me . I'm stood at St Brigid's well . It's windy , it's rainy , there's water running under a bridge . There's a statue that's quite recent of St Brigid next to the water . She's holding her eternal flame , next to a series of arches that someone's hung a St Brigid's cross in .

Speaker 1 1:32

What do you know about St Brigid ? I'll confess not being religious . I knew very little . Growing up in Wales , I recall there was a nearby school that bore her name . On my travels I've occasionally spotted a church or a street that her name appears on , but I've paid no real attention . Until last year when the Irish government declared a new bank holiday in Ireland to coincide with St Brigid's Day on February the 1st . As a lover of stories of strong women , I was intrigued what had given this particular one her own special day , and so , on my recent adventure to the Emerald Isle , I decided to try and decipher the real Brigid behind the Saint and find out if she even existed at all .

Speaker 4 2:12

My name is Tom McCutcheon and I'm the manager of Kildare Town Heritage Centre and Tourist Office .

Speaker 1 2:17

Kildare, for those who don't know, sits just a 30 minute train ride or 45 minute drive from Dublin , easily reached by rail or road . It's an unassuming commuter town , famed among horse racing fans , with a modest population of just over 10,000 souls . It may be small in size , but it's a place that gave its name to the entire county within which it sits and also was the home of a woman called Brigid , who lived here back in the 5th century , as Tom explains .

Speaker 4 2:47

Well , we know that basically her mum was a slave . Her father was a chief in . They think that her mum may have come from Portugal originally , but she grew up basically half-slave and half-free person and she was supposedly very beautiful and her father wanted her to marry , and obviously into some sort of alliance , and she basically didn't and she saw her life very differently . But even from early age people could see how kind she was . Like when her parents were there . Often the food was gone because someone poor would come to the house looking for something to eat and she would give everything . She's linked to Smithcraft , blacksmiths , poetry , sustainability , obviously charismatic female leader , kindness , peace .

Speaker 1 3:39

And was she from Kildare or did she come to Kildare ? What's the theory there ?

Speaker 4 3:44

We say that she was born in a place called Umeras , which is probably five or six kilometers away from here , like four or five miles near between here and , and she was looking for a site for her church . She went to the king of Lentster because there was already a sacred grove here of oak trees and linked to the fire temple .

Speaker 1 4:08

I'm going to cut in here and tell you a little bit about the legend of Brigid the Goddess , which I learned in this centre courtesy of the impressive VR presentation that whisks visitors back 1500 years into the past . It starts by transporting us to the circle of oak trees that Tom refers to , where the cathedral today now stands , hence the Irish name for the town Kill Dara the Church of the Oak . We're watching a group of pagan women surrounding a fire which they swear to keep burning forever . The Briga , for she has many . She's a figure who predated Christianity , celebrated by Celts across Europe , linked to Mother Earth and the region around the Danube . In Germany , she became known as the Goddess of Fire , and some theorists and historians believe that the Celtic Bridget was adopted by Christianity in order to convert pagans . Now back to Tom .

Speaker 4 5:10

She went to the King of Lenster who was notoriously mean and he , she kept at him and he said no , no , no . And eventually he said lay down your cloak and you can have as much land as your cloak and cover . And obviously it's spread out , they say , to cover all of the Curragh plains . So in local terms the Curragh is often referred to as Brigid's Pastures .

Speaker 1 5:34

The Curragh is a huge expanse of common land , around 2000 hectares in size . It's home to the largest fenn or wetland in Ireland and consists of rolling grassland with no hedges , making it quite a spectacle to behold . Traditionally it was a gathering place and a place to graze animals . Now it's used to train horses for the nearby racetrack . After speaking to Tom , I drove out to these Brigid Pastures to see just how big an area it was that a single woman could claim with just one cloak . This is the Curragh . It's just endless stretches of sort of crumpled green marshland , for want of a better word . It's just incredible to think that she stood on these same lands , or a woman called Brigid did , and helped claim them for the people , for agriculture , really , and for somewhere to live and for drinking water and healthy places to drink and eat . It really is beautiful . After visiting the Curragh and getting a sense of the size of the landscape that Brigid managed to claim from the Miserly King , I asked Tom how it could possibly be based on any truth .

Speaker 4 6:43

There is a practical way to look at that . Brigid was a person of high standing and she could have had a silk cloak . Yeah , she took a thread of four of her followers , took a thread from each corner of the cloak and walked in opposite directions . She could have spanned out and covered the whole Curragh .

Speaker 1 7:02

So I asked Tom does he believe that Saint Brigid was actually a real person ?

Speaker 4 7:07

There was a writer a couple of years ago . He was the education officer for the National Museum . Yeah , he spent 15 years collecting and collating everything you can imagine about Brigid poetry , songs , everything and putting it together and his conclusion he went in with a very objective view was if Brigid didn't exist , it was the greatest con ever .

Speaker 1 7:32

I left the Heritage Centre and walked to the Cathedral, formally the Circle of Oak Trees and the site where it's believed Saint Brigid ran her co-ed monastery . That's one that teaches both men and women together - very forward thinking for the time . The grand stone building that stands there today was closed for repairs on my visit , but in the grounds there is a monument said to mark the spot where the eternal flame burned until the Reformation of the Church saw it extinguished in the 16th century . Though that light went out, a little down the road I met a woman responsible for bringing it back .

Speaker 3 8:06

My name is Phil O'Shea . We're in Solas Bhride Centre in Kildare Town to give its full title . Solas Bhride Centre and Hermitage and it's a not-for-profit organisation , a Christian Spirituality Centre , which focus on unfolding the legacy of Saint Brigid and how that can speak to us today .

Speaker 1 8:27

Sister Phil is one of only two Brigidene sisters left in Kildare , who 30 years ago came to the town and nearly 10 years ago opened the centre Solas Bhride , or the light of Brigid , where Brigid's eternal flame now lives and never goes out . You heard her mention hermitages . These are self-contained apartments that they rent out to people of any or no religion for time for reflection . I met Phil to discuss who she thought Brigid was and her relevance today .

Speaker 3 8:55

Brigid because she's pre-recorded history is malleable . Some people see Brigid only as a goddess . Some people see Brigid as the saint , as just an embodiment of the goddess . So , as one of the historians said , she's malleable and each generation can reinvented her in thier own way . So I suppose it depends on which Brigid you come to .

Speaker 1 9:23

We talked about Brigid as being a sustainable saint , one who was a tune to the earth , who wasn't wasteful , who valued nature , which also links to her history as a pagan goddess too . Her feast day in Christianity is the 1st of February , which marks the first day of spring , or in pre-Christian times Imbolc , and it seems that the sisters of Brigidene share this duality of the ecclesiastical beliefs with the pagan ones .

Speaker 3 9:48

We marked the rhythm of the year , the natural season and the liturgical season . So we would have things for , for example , we would mark the equinoxes and the solstice, through the lens , I suppose , of caring for the earth and that whole Celtic sense of the divine presence being in and through everything and also our call to care for the earth today . So we think it's lovely to mark the rhythm of the seasons and then our Advent and Easter and Lent , you know our Christian feasts as well , incorporated into it .

Speaker 1 10:21

Before I left , Sister Phil brought out some rushes which they used to weave what's known as Brigid's cross . Always made of natural material . It's said that Brigid herself made it to explain her Christian beliefs to a pagan chieftain , but there are others who say its four arms represent the four seasons or the four elements earth , water , air and , of course , fire . I watched as she took a cluster of green grasses and transformed them into a work of art and then asked me to do the same . It's funny because it feels so strong and at the same time , it's so vulnerable . That is a very .

Speaker 3 10:58

You know , when we're reflecting , sometimes we do anything , meditation on it , you know . There's a lovely Irish phrase which says . We're only strong when we're together .

Speaker 1 11:09

I left with my Brigid cross in hand and visited her holy well , where other crosses hung and prayers and Christian candles sat by her statue , alongside a tree which was tied with ribbons or clooties an old spiritual offering that's dipped in the well or spring , and said to help with healing something that predates the church by thousands of years .

Speaker 1 11:30

Whilst I sat under the statue of Brigid - always placed on the ground rather than raised on a plinth to show her connection to the land , to people - I considered how , whether she was real or not , her legacy does live on in the local people .

Brigid's Ale and Sustainable Business

Speaker 1 11:44

Back in the town , I was staying in a place called Fire Castle , a Deli-B akery and Hotel next to the cathedral , and I see ask the owner Paul, a native Kildarian: "Has she been something of an inspiration for you as a businessman ?

Speaker 5 11:55

Well , you know , I suppose , probably through you know , I suppose , when you look at it , maybe that's what's built into us . You know what I mean ? We've kind of grown up with it and she is everything . Look , we're always trying to make things more sustainable . So I suppose , yeah , it's , we've kind of morphed . It's probably morphed its way through me and it's probably it embodies everything we do . But certainly , you know , we try to do it to be as sustainable as possible .

Speaker 1 12:18

From inspiring sustainable business practices to caring for nature , promoting education for all and helping those less fortunate . Brigid certainly seemed like the kind of woman I could get on board with , but if I was still sat on the fence , there was one last person I was about to meet who would convince me .

Speaker 2 12:34

So Brigid is the patron saint of brewing .

Speaker 1 12:37

That's right . Among all her many talents , brigid was also the brewer of beer , much like Judith Boyle , a fourth generation publican here in Kildare .

Speaker 2 12:46

She really believed that if she brewed like a beer it would solve the problems of the world , and so she believed that if she could brew and people got around kind of a cauldron or a pot of beer and shared it out , that people would solve each other's problems . So basically , you know , she was obviously really good at socialising and then there was a lot of writings about the fact that she used to brew for a lot of the other monasteries around as well , and historically , in relation to beer , lots of beer in the UK and Ireland were brewed by monasteries first and then doled out , basically either to cure an element or if people couldn't drink the water .

Speaker 2 13:34

It was a light and safer way of drinking at the time .

Speaker 1 13:38

There's even a story that , a lot like in the Bible where Jesus turns water into wine , Brigid is said to make one barrel of beer quench the thirst of an entire parish of 18 churches . Whether or not you think that's a true story , it certainly inspired Judith and her sister Susan to attempt to do the same . They formed two sisters brewing and created us Brigid's Ale in her honour .

Speaker 2 13:58

So the idea with Brigid's Ale was that it was supposed to kind of , I suppose , celebrate everything that was Brigid . So we wanted to use homegrown malt and barley , or homegrown barley that was malted here , and then we also put honey in our ale , so it kind of signified the whole kind of Brigid side of things . So there was an ancient style of beer called a braggot , which was either mead and beer mixed together to make a kind of a honey ale , or else honey was added to the ale . So we add - our dad's a beekeeper-

Speaker 2 14:31

so we added his honey to the beer and then put in some hops that were kind of earthy hops to kind of symbolise the kind of again nod , to kind of that agriculturalness to it . And then , yeah , and we brewed this beer and it was a small batch of beer and we had it at the tasting and everyone said it was amazing . And then we were like , yeah , that's lovely , that's done . Tick . And then a couple of weeks later people came in and were like , oh , do you have any more of that beer ? And we're like no , no , no , no , we weren't doing it . No , no , it was a one-off .

Speaker 2 15:03

It was just a thing , we might have it next year . And then people kept asking for it . So we were like , okay , let's do this commercially . So we don't have a brewery or anything we gypsy brewish who will ever take us ? And then we have a recipe and we brew it and then we sell it in the pub downstairs .

Speaker 1 15:20

After a long weekend in Kildare on Brigid's Trail , I wasn't sure I was any closer to discovering if she truly was real , but the qualities that Brigid the Goddess , the saint and the woman stood for, helping others , empowering women , caring for the earth and making enough beer for everyone, means that one thing's for sure - her legend has certainly spanned further than a magic cloak ever did , and we can all drink to that . This has been a special Wander Woman Extra episode brought to you in association with podcast partners Tourism Island . For more inspiring stories from the road , travel hacks , gear chat and inspirational Wander Women around the world . Do subscribe so that you never miss an episode and please do leave a review . It means so much . You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram @PhoebeR Smith , and go to my website , phoebe-smith . com , to get in touch .

Credits for Wander Woman Extra Episode

Speaker 1 16:12

This Wonder Woman Extra episode was written and edited by me , Phoebe Smith . The producer is Daniel Nielsen . The logo was designed by John Summerton . Thanks to all the people I met on my journey and were willing to talk to me . It's because of you that this podcast is able to happen at all .