The decline of social Catholicism in Ireland has thrown up a multitude of phenomena, not least the growing official worship of Imbolc and a progressive retelling of Saint Brigid.
Bríd, the Gaelic woman who brought Christianity to Louth, the saint has already undergone something of a reimagining for those remembering the attempts to turn her into a pro-abortion figure during the Repeal campaign.
While certain aspects of the Brigid mythos remain contentious, particularly determine where the Christian and pre-Christian aspects begin and end, the Kildare saint nonetheless has remained a popular figure of veneration well into the late 20th Century.
For the girlboss era of the 2010s however Saint Brigid underwent a fresh imagining courtesy of rather obnoxious attempts by the Department of Foreign Affairs and other cultural institutions.
Amplified by a state holiday that strategically attempts to erase Catholicism by reference to Imbolc this Saint Brigit’s Day, various Irish diplomatic outlets worldwide will use the occasion to broadcast girlpower. The Saint may have converted Kildare through her magic cloak and devotion to Our Lady but in the eyes of many Irish officials at home and abroad Brigid was just a girlboss in waiting.
A celebration of the ‘feminine spirit’ in the words of officials rather than celebration of one of our monastic saints, the holiday is testament to the understanding certain progressive elites in Ireland have of the necessity of myth as a legitimising device.
Similar to the degradation of Saint Patrick’s Day or co-opting of the nation’s republican heritage by Whig and Marxists alike, within this new mythology Catholicism or ethnic Irish identity are frozen out.
The French revolutionaries infamously tried similar with their cult of Reason with Hoxhaist Albania within living memory trying to resurrect pagan idol worship to mitigate religious worship. The BLM craze or even climate mania among Irish women can be seen as the similar expression of the religious drive.
Ireland culturally if not politically the last thirty or so years has undergone a revolution as much as Robspiere’s Republic but this new Brigid cult a symptom of a secular elite scratching for authenticity.
Try as they might, menopausal civil servants or middle class crystal worshipers will never replicate the devotion shown to our female national saint down through the centuries.
This sloppy attempt to harness religious yearning by progressive Ireland should not be welcomed but understood in the context that the Irish people require something a bit more than bricks and mortar to sustain themselves.
Regardless, wherever this holiday may find you, go dtuga Bríd beannachtaí agus cosaint duit!
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