Bridget of Kildare, Saint

BRIDGET OF KILDARE, Saint. - Virgin, patroness and protectress of Ireland, second only to St. Patrick in the veneration of her people. Reliable historical data about her are lacking, but it is to be held that she was born in the second half of the 5th century and died around 524. The daughter of Christian parents, cultured and beautiful, she is said to have refused marriage and, having taken the veil from the hands of a bishop Mac Caille, to have founded a great double monastery in the valley of the Liffey, near a sacred oak, at Cell-dara (and church of the oak 9), now Kildare. Her remains are preserved beneath the high altar of the church, together with those of bishop Conlaed, to whom she is said to have entrusted the priestly functions for the double community. Around the middle of the 7th century the community of Cell-dara commissioned a certain Cogitosus to write a Vita of the foundress, which has come down to us and which forms the basis of all Brigidine hagiography, dwelling especially on the miracles attributed to her. Cell-dara remained one of the principal Irish monastic churches until the Norman invasion, when Gerald of Wales visited it, leaving us an interesting description of it (Topographia Hibernica, chaps. 34-36). It seems beyond doubt that the double monastery existed in the time of Cogitosus, but it is uncertain whether it was such in the days of St. B. In any case there are no other examples of similar monasteries in Ireland, nor generally in the Celtic Churches. The feast of the Saint falls on 1 February. Irish monks and pilgrims spread her cult very early throughout all of Western Europe. In Italy it is still alive in Piedmont (often associated with that of the Irish St. Ursus of Aosta), in Liguria, in Lombardy, in Emilia (especially at Piacenza), in Trentino, and in ancient times also in Tuscany.