Happy St Brigids Day

spectacular moonrise behind the house this weekend

The start of Spring, the celebration of the goddess and saint - Brigid's Day is well marked here and celebrated as Imbolc in communities around the world.  

Here is a short video poem for you to enjoy - At Bridget's Well .  commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Museum of Literature Ireland to celebrate St. Brigid's Day 2021. They have collaborated on ‘Three Poems for Brigid’, a series of three short online films. Each film showcases a poet and a spoken word performer, and is based around one of the three aspects of Brigid as the triple goddess of Poetry, Healing, and Craftwork.

Hopefully I'll get out for some new rushes this weekend if the weather picks up or get given a fresh Brigid's cross - time for renewed energy.   I love the shape, that it's the circle of life.

And an old tradition called 'bratog Bride' (Brigid's scarf) says to leave out a piece of cloth or a scarf overnight to be blessed by the goddess/saint as she passes.   The cloth can then be used to heal sore throats and headaches.   

The first time I'd heard of this was two years ago when we were at Annaghmakerrig - everyone tied a piece of cloth to a tree at the door (there were only a couple left when I went to photograph it in the morning) - I still have mine in the house somewhere - just in case;)

And finally, although Holocaust Remembrance Day has passed, I'd like to leave you the link to 'Here I Stand' - a video poem by my friend Csilla Toldy who won a commission by the NI Executive and the NI Arts Council to produce a piece to mark the day.  Her mother remembers the children being being taken away from Budapest and as part of her research into the video poem she and her mother revisited Auschwitz.  

Happy St Brigid's Day.

St Brigid's Day

In keeping with the traditions of Brigid's Eve, after dinner last night a crowd of us went out to hang pieces of cloth on a bush to be blessed by the fairies - an old tradition called Bratog Bhride (Brigid's Cloak).   Then in the morning you take your piece back and keep it in the house to bring you good luck, or some people believe it is a cure for headaches because it has been blessed by Brigid, the goddess of fertility and creativity. (In these parts, in Co. Monaghan, you're supposed to hang the cloth on a fairy tree, and there is a fairy fort here, but the snow, and an extra couple of glasses of wine meant we only got as far as the bush outside the door!)

We're back at Tyrone Guthrie House in Annaghmakerrig, an artist's retreat - I wrote about it here on a previous visit.   And I'll come back to it at the end of this stay.  We're both still trying to recover from that awful bug so we're not being as productive as we'd like, but nonetheless the ideas are starting to come.

For me a highlight of being here is the evening meal which everyone shares.   Around the table last night there was a ghost writer, a novelist, a poet, a theatre director and a drama writer working together on a new production, a composer of film music, a gallery owner/manager, another theatre director, a writer preparing performance pieces, a young actress working on pieces of video crossed with live performance, a traditional musician, a woman writing about cows and ourselves two, there to work on songs.   After dinner we had a round table concert of songs, poems, drama monologues, and stories, from the hilarious to the serious - the mixture of creatives of different disciplines is so nourishing.

If you'd like to read more about Brigid I wrote about her here and at the link for Bratog Bride above.

Bright blessings of the season to you and yours.

Brigid's Day

Happy Brigid's Day everyone.

This is the Celtic holiday of Imbolc, St Brigid's Day and the first day of the Celtic Spring.

Last night I got a lovely text from my friend Joanna about a tradition around St Brigid that I'd never heard of before....  She wrote:
On St Brigid's Eve, don't forget to put out the Bratóg Bríde (Brigid's little cloak) (Bríde pronounced breed) overnight.  It's a piece of cloth, scarf or ribbon which St Bridget would bless in passing.  The bratóg would help wearers with headaches and sore throats throughout the year to come.

I didn't manage to get out yesterday to gather rushes to make a Brigid's Cross for today - perhaps I'll still do it later in the day.   It was a very strong tradition when I was growing up and many in this area are keeping the tradition alive.   I loved the symbol of that cross, the symbol of the cycle of the year, continuing regardless.

Brigid was the goddess of the hearth, fertility and creativity among many other things.   Her presence and power was so strong that she was adopted as a Saint by the Catholic Church as Christianity spread through Ireland in the 5th and 6th centuries.  Now there are many festivals around the country that celebrate all aspects of the woman, the goddess and the saint.

I was looking for a piece of music I'd once heard to share with you but came across this lovely video instead .... posted by a blog which no longer seems to be active -  nefaeriaofetsy.blogspot.com
The music is beautiful - a mix from Loreena McKennitt and some other voices - but there is lots of information about Brigid the Goddess and her place in Celtic Mythology, about Brigid the Saint and her place in the Christian church and lastly about Imbolc.   If you're interested in folklore you might find this an entertaining read.  At the end it also gives a list of sources for the information.

Have a great month of February.

New Beginnings

Today, at the Brigid of Faughart Festival, I attended a lovely singing workshop with Noirin Ni Riain who is a wonderful singer in the traditional Irish style,  and a world recognised teacher and expert in Gregorian Chant as sung by the monks at Glenstal Abbey in the West of Ireland.   She actually lives at the monastery and continues her studies of the Celtic Church and its music.

Here is Noirin singing Ode to Brigid.

I learned today that Imbolc is the time of new beginnings - when we sow the seeds for the coming year.
I came away with lots of ideas and plans.   Now I just need to sit down and put some of them into action.  And the first of these is to catch up with all the lovely new people who came to my blog from last week's party.   It's been such a busy week and I've only managed to visit about two thirds yet.   So this week, I promise to get by and say hello.

Are you starting anything new at this time of year?  You know I love to hear.
Have a wonderful week.