Moone

Brigid 1500: Mary of the Gael

St Brigid, according to some accounts, died in 524. Therefore, we are celebrating this year the 1500th anniversary of her death. Once again, I have gone back to primary sources for incidents from her life and am illustrating them with stained glass images. This year I have added as a source the famous Canon O’Hanlon’s Life, from his Lives of the Irish Saints Series, Vol 2, a work of overwhelming erudition.

The Patrick and Brigid window in Meath Hill, by George Walsh. I love that Brigid has precedence over Patrick in this enormous cruciform window

If you haven’t already done so, now is a good time to go back and read my 2022 post, St Brigid: Dove Among Birds, Vine Among Trees, Sun Among Stars and my 2023 post, Brigid: A Bishop in All But Name. In them, I explain what the original sources for the Life of Brigid are. They all contain similar accounts and may be ultimately based on a single source – the Life of St Brigid by St Ultán – and are laid out as a series of miracles that lead us from her birth to her death.

This is a detail from a window in Ballynahown, Co Westmeath, and is probably by Watson of Youghal. I like the clever way the oak leaves are used as frame and background

Many more miracles, legends, myths and stories accreted to her cult over the centuries. A good example of such a story is the one where she makes a cross from rushes – that one is nowhere to be found in the original Lives, but is an integral part of the folklore surrounding her, and therefore almost invariably found in her iconography.

This is a photo by Frank Fullard, used with permission and thanks. It is a simple treatment of St Brigid from Kilmaine, Co Mayo

She is associated with many places and numerous holy wells – just take a look at all the St Brigid’s wells Amanda has documented in Cork and Kerry. But of course it is Kildare that rightly claims her. Kildare (Cill Dara – the Church in the Oak Wood) is where she built her church and established her city. It is the origin of three of the attributes we see in many windows – a church, oak leaves and a lamp. (For the story about the Bishop’s Crozier, see the previous posts.)

Detail from the Brigid Window in Carrickmacross – she’s consulting with her architects

The Book of Lismore has this story about building the church:

Brigit went to Bishop Mel, that he might come and mark out her city for her. When they came thereafter to the place in which Kildare stands to-day, that was the time that Ailill, son of Dunlang, chanced to be coming, with a hundred horseloads of peeled rods, over the midst of Kildare. Then maidens came from Brigit to ask for some of the rods, and refusal was given to them. The horses were (straightway) struck down under their horseloads to the ground. Then stakes and wattles were taken from them, and they arose not until Ailill had offered the hundred horseloads to Brigit. And therewith was built Saint Brigit’s great house in Kildare, and it is Ailill that fed the wrights and paid them their wages. So Brigit left (as a blessing) that the kingship of Leinster should be till doomsday from Ailill, son of Dunlang.

Detail from the Brigid window in Sneem, Co Kerry, by Watson of Youghal

It was a large establishment. O’Hanlon says:

We are informed, that her Rule was followed, for a long time, by the greatest part of those monasteries, belonging to sacred virgins in Ireland; nearly all of these acknowledging our saint as their mother and mistress, and the monastery of Kildare as the headquarters of their Order. Moreover, Cogitosus informs us, in his prologue to her life, that not only did she rule nuns, but also a large community of men, who lived in a separate monastery. This obliged the saint to call to her aid, and from out his solitude, the holy bishop, S. Conlaeth, to be the director and spiritual father of her religious; and, at the same time, to be bishop of the city. The church at Kildare, to suit the necessities of the double monastery and to accommodate the laity, was divided by partitions into three distinct parts. One of these was reserved for the monks; one for the nuns; while a third compartment was intended to suit the requirements of the laity.

Harry Clarke’s 1924 window in Cloughjordan is of the Ascension with Irish Saints – this is a young St Brigid, holding her church

And what about the lamp? This is interesting, as its first appearance was not in any of the lives but in the writings of the notorious Giraldus Cambrensis, Gerald of Wales. He will get a post of his own in due course, but for the moment, if you are not familiar with him, there’s a delightful sketch of him and his writings about Ireland in the 12th century here.

Brigid window in Kilgarvan, Co Kerry, by Earley and Co

Here is his story about the sacred fire, now usually rendered as a lamp, as faithfully related by O’Hanlon:

Speaking of Kildare city, in Leinster, which had become so renowned, owing to its connexion with our glorious abbess, Giraldus Cambrensis says, that foremost, among many miraculous things worthy of record, was St. Brigid’s inextinguishable fire. Not, that this fire itself was incapable of being extinguished, did it obtain any such name, but, because nuns and holy women had so carefully and sedulously supplied fuel to feed its flames, that from St. Brigid’s time to the twelfth century, when he wrote, it remained perpetually burning through a long lapse of years. What was still more remarkable, notwithstanding great heaps of wood, that must have been piled upon it, during such a prolonged interval, the ashes of this fire never increased.

Another detail from the Watson window in Sneem

What is furthermore remarkable, from the time of St. Brigid and after her death until the twelfth century, an even number, including twenty nuns, and the abbess, had remained in Kildare nunnery. Each of these religious, in rotation, nightly watched this inextinguishable fire. On the twentieth night, having placed wood on its embers, the last nun said:” O Brigid, guard thy fires, for this night the duty devolves on thyself.” Then the nun left that pyre, but although the wood might have been all consumed before morning, yet the coals remained alive and inextinguishable. A circular hedge of shrubs or thorns surrounded it, and no male person dare presume to enter within that sacred enclosure, lest he might provoke Divine vengeance, as had been experienced by a certain rash man, who ventured to transgress this ordinance. Women only were allowed to tend that fire. Even these attendants were not permitted to blow it with their breath; but, they used boughs of trees as fans for this purpose.

This is the predella from the Brigid window in Moone, by the Harry Clarke Studios (see blow for the main panel)

All of the Lives and O’Hanlon’s account tell of Brigid’s many miracles in providing food and clothing for the poor, in healing sicknesses, in turning the hearts of evildoers to God, in freeing slaves, and in punishing those who are selfish or cruel.

Brigid and the Beggar, by William Dowling, Gorey C of I

However, the story I like best perhaps is this one from the Vita Prima: 

In the same place also when saint Brigit was staying as a guest, a married man came with a request that saint Brigit should bless some water for him to sprinkle his wife with, for the wife actually hated the husband. So Brigit blessed some water and his house and food and drink and bed were sprinkled while his wife was away. And from that day on the wife loved her husband with a passionate love as long as she lived.

She may have been a nun, but she obviously served up a good love potion when the situation required it. This story is not only repeated in the Book of Lismore, but embellished, thus: 

When he had done thus, the wife gave exceeding great love to him, so that she could not keep apart from him, even on one side of the house ; but she was always at one of his hands. He went one day on a journey and left the wife asleep. When the woman awoke she rose up lightly and went after the husband, and saw him afar from her, with an arm of the sea between them. She cried out to her husband and said that she would go into the sea unless he came to her.

The aged St Brigid by George Stephen Walsh, in Ballintubber Abbey – another image generously loaned by Frank Fullard

My final point for this post about St Brigid is the matter of where she is buried. Most authorities give this as Downpatrick, where she is laid to rest alongside Patrick and Columcille. However, a medieval legend grew that she went to Glastonbury in old age and died there. That is why she is venerated in Britain as well as in Ireland – the top photograph in this post is from the St Brigid window in Exeter Cathedral. Here’s the full window, in which she is flanked, for some reason, by St Luke and St John busily writing their gospels.

Here is another British window, this one designed by Nuttgens in 1952 for St Etheldreda’s Church in London. (Used with thanks under the Creative Commons License – original is here.) It’s a particularly good narrative window, showing the building of her church under the Oak Tree, her crozier, and two cows – there are many stories of milk and cows in the Lives.

But O’Hanlon is having none of the Glastonbury story.

We cannot receive as duly authenticated, or even as probable, several assertions of mediaeval and more recent writers, who have treated concerning this illustrious virgin. It has been stated, that about the year 488, Saint Brigid left Ireland, and proceeded towards Glastonbury. There, it is said, she remained, until advanced in years, on an island, and convenient to the monastery in that place. Whether she died there or returned to Ireland is doubted. But, it seems probable enough, such a tradition had its origin, owing to this circumstance, that a different St. Brigid, called of Inis-bridge, or of Bride’s Island, had been the person really meant. She lived many years on a small island, near Glastonbury, called Brigidae Insula i.e., Brigid’s Bridge. This latter St. Brigid is said to have been buried, at Glastonbury.

This Brigid window is in Moone, Co Kildare from the Harry Clarke Studios. It features, as do many Brigid windows I have seen, a deer, but I can find no mention of a deer in any of the Lives. Perhaps one of our readers knows where the deer icon comes from?

I will finish with a quote from the Book of Lismore, which gives me the title for this post, and gives Brigid one of her most frequent soubriquets.

It is she that helpeth every one who is in a strait and in danger: it is she that abateth the pestilences: it is she that quelleth the anger and the storm of the sea. She is the prophetess of Christ she is the Queen of the South: she is the Mary of the Gael

I don’t know whose window this is – it’s from Ballybunion – but I love the composition

And a final image from Glynn, Co Wexford, because I love the pared-to-the-bone simplicity of this Richard King medallion..

Posts about St Brigid

St Brigid and AI

Brigid 1500: Mary of the Gael

Brigid: A Bishop in All But Name

St Brigid: Dove Among Birds, Vine Among Trees, Sun Among Stars

The Treasures of Castledermot

Last week we explored the medieval wonders at Moone, in County Kildare. We couldn’t leave the area without going on to Castledermot to visit the monastic site of Díseart Diarmada, (the hermitage of Dermot) – a few minutes’ drive down the road. Stone carving artists were active here, too, as we can see from the many artefacts mainly centred today around St James’ Church, built on the site of the former monastery. These include a decorated Romanesque doorway: Finola is writing about Romanesque architecture today.

Díseart Diarmada as it might have appeared in the 800s. This reconstructed view is taken from the excellent Dúchas interpretation panels on the site, and shows the earliest church, the 20m high round tower (which still stands today) and the two ornate high crosses, which also remain intact

The settlement itself was highly important. There were Viking raids during the 9th century, probably indicating that there was wealth to be plundered there. A royal grant was given for a fair in 1199, and the very first Irish parliament was convened in the town on 18th June 1264. In 1393 Castledermot was granted permission to mint its own coins.

The two high crosses at Castledermot: south cross (left) and north cross (right – round tower beyond). The header picture shows the geometric work on the east face of the south cross

There are certainly figurative carvings on the two crosses to almost rival those found at Moone. I was particularly interested to see other versions of the stories of the loaves and fishes and Daniel in the lions’ den. But the real glory of Castledermot lies in the panels of knotwork. If these were coloured (as suggested at Moone) they must have been spectacular.

Note the loaves and fishes, bottom left

It’s interesting to speculate who might have been responsible for this ancient carving. Could it have been the monks themselves, who considered that part of their dedicated life was to build and decorate the great monastic buildings? Or were they constructed by travelling masons, much as the later cathedrals were? And who directed and designed the work? These are such important monuments – a legacy which we must be sure to look after: they have been here for more than a thousand years and – in spite of being in the open and subject to constant weathering – are still clear to see. At Moone the great cross there has been placed under a modern protective canopy, which is not intrusive. Perhaps such actions should be considered for all these Irish medieval works of art.

The site at Castledermot reveals many other remains which appear to be weathering quite badly. These include the Hogback Stone, which has been linked to Viking activity in the area: it was discovered just below the ground in its present location in 1967. It is said to represent a House for the Dead, and other examples have been found in Scotland and England: this is the only one found so far in Ireland.

The Hogback Stone (top – Dúchas – and bottom left) and an unusual type of cross-slab close by (right). This is known as the Swearing Stone, and it is said that it may have been used during wedding ceremonies or for swearing oaths or allegiances in early times

Although residents in Castledermot are keen that their historic artefacts are well looked after and are seen by an interested public, the site remains rather obscure and perhaps deserves to be better known. There is a wealth of heritage in Ireland – do we take it too much for granted? The Office of Public Works (formally Dúchas) do their best to maintain and advertise the monuments under their care but it’s an uphill job with a budget which is far too small.

We have by no means exhausted the treasures of this remarkable Irish town. There are other intriguing carved stones and crosses on the monastic site, and, at the southern end of the town are impressive remains of a Franciscan Friary, founded around 1247. This site has a guardian and a key holder, but we didn’t have time to visit. Inside it is a rare cadaver grave stone dating to about 1520. In 1275, the town was given a royal murage grant. This allowed the collection of tolls from people entering Castledermot to pay for the construction and maintenance of town walls. The wall, with three gates, was completed around 1300.

Ancient Irish Art – Moone High Cross

Wherever we travel in Ireland, we look for the routes which will take us past sites rich in history and archaeology. Finola wrote a while ago about places to visit close to the M8, which links Cork to Dublin. Last week we discovered a real gem, in County Kildare, about 40 kilometres east of the motorway – well worth the diversion.

Just outside the village of Moone is the finest medieval high cross that we have seen in Ireland. It is on the site of Moone Abbey (above right – a sketch from 1784 by antiquarian Austin Cooper), where a church is believed to have been founded by St Palladius, who came to Ireland in 431. It was later dedicated to St Columcille. The abbey ruins date from the 13th century, but the site must have been an important religious foundation long before this as the high crosses (there were once four here) are very much older. Historical sources differ on their age – I have found them variously attributed to the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th centuries! It’s safe to say they are at least 1100 years old.

Early views of the High Cross at Moone: left – an engraving from 1857 and right – a photograph from the Lawrence Collection dating from the 1890s. Both images show the earlier reconstruction, before the centre pillar was discovered and added

The Abbey was ransacked and burned along with the nearby Castle by Cromwellian forces in the 17th century and the high crosses were probably buried at that time. Two sections of the one we can see today were rediscovered in the Abbey grounds in 1835 and re-erected in the Abbey by the Duke Of Leinster. In 1893 a further section was uncovered and added to bring the full height of this cross to 5.3 metres. This is not quite the highest high cross in Ireland – Muiredach’s Cross at Monasterboice is 5.5 metres – but Moone is visually more impressive because it is so slender, and beautifully decorated.

The west face of the Moone High Cross seen in its present context in the ruined Abbey. The site has been well laid out and presented with the fragments of other carved stones discovered during excavations. A protective roof has also been constructed in a non-intrusive simple style

The carvings on the granite Moone cross are in relatively good condition and all the panels can be clearly seen. They are fine examples of medieval Irish art: stories from the Bible  are mingled with Celtic knotwork and some enigmatic bestiary. The figurative work is simple and stylised – yet somehow very modern in its execution.

Stories told in stone: Adam and Eve, Daniel in the Lion’s Den and the Flight into Egypt. The header image is a wonderful representation of the Loaves and Fishes

The Crucifixion, SS Paul and Anthony breaking bread in the desert and The Fiery Furnace

Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac and the Temptation of St Anthony the Hermit

A six-headed monster? Probably not a Bible story…

The site is very well interpreted by the Heritage Service: there are comprehensive information boards describing every carved panel.

Interpretation boards include full annotation for the panels on the High Cross, together with projected reconstructions of the other findings on the site

Top picture – looking towards the east face of the High Cross; below – the east and west faces of the cross wheel

Left – an interesting conjecture showing that the panels may have been coloured in; right – the friendly Keeper of the Cross!

Be sure to visit this site – and don’t forget to purchase your guide book at Wall’s Mini Mart in the village!