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!
Nevertheless, I am thrilled to an article about Brigid in the journal today. Here is a true story I can tell you about myself and my three cats that happened a few years ago here in New Jersey. Brigid knows where her children are.
It was during Storm Sandy that had taken out the power in the northeast for a couple of weeks, and Shígí, Ború, and Fergus and I had been without electricity or heat for 8 days. I lit a small fire every night but that didn’t really keep us warm. The cats and I went to bed early every night, cuddling in bed to keep warm. On the eighth night, before I went to my room (just around the corner from the fireplace – it’s a small house on one floor) I decided to offer up a rosary in honor of Saint Brigid, hoping she would keep the hearth going through the night or bring the power & the heat back. Shígí and Ború had already gone to bed, but as I got down on my knees on the hearth rug and took out my rosary beads, little Fergus sat down next to me the whole time. I told Fergus what we were doing. When the prayers were done we got up and climbed into bed with the others.
At 2:14 in the morning suddenly the lights came on and startled me awake – I sat up straight in bed and heard the furnace kick on. Shígí and Ború stayed cuddled, but as I was pulling my shoes on Fergus jumped off the bed and ran ahead of me into the living room. As I turned the corner I saw him sitting at attention on the hearth rug staring intently into the fire.
There was exactly only one single ember left glowing. Just one before the fire would go out.
Fergus looked up at me with his big solemn eyes and lifted up one paw, in the way cats do sometimes when asking – a gesture he has never made before or since.
I said to him, “Oh Fergus, what are you saying to me?”
But that must always be a mystery. I’d like to think Saint Brigid scratched him gently between his ears as she passed through.
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A great tale of inspiration Gearon and it proves that your fate of faith is because of your faith in fate…and you can’t have one without the other
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Official Ireland’s Heretics…DCC and the Devils Spawn.
Having nothing to show that is their own,nothing of substance to a wider appeal, they resort to the worn out path of Christian ridicule and blasphemous desecration
….and always to scared, terrified to do the same to Muslim, Jew, Protestant or Hindu feast days.
They have nothing to fear from the Cowards of Rome,Cowards of Church,Cowards of Government and Establishment,not to mention their fellow fruit loop Mc.nt the Hate Speech Harlot…all quiet now,of course.
The true women of Ireland need to stand together and sue these arseholes
in the highest courts,for religious discrimination,blasphemy,incitement to HATE CRIME and religious persecution because Dublin City Council
DOES NOT REPRESENT THE MAJORITY OF IRISH WOMEN.
This is another example of the woke and communists to replace our identity as a Christian ✝️ country.