Brigid 
(Also known as Bride)

Brigid, whose name means "bright arrow: and whose life we celebrate today, was, and continues to be known by many names: among them: Bride, Bridey, Brigit, Briggidda and Brigantia.

Because of the legendary quality of the earliest accounts of her life, there is much debate among many scholars and even faithful Christians as to the authenticity of her biographies. Despite this debate, next to Patrick, she is the most beloved of Irish saints. Born at Fauchert, near Dundalk in County Louth, about the middle of the fifth century, she may have met Patrick as a young girl. According to her biographers her parents were Dubhthach, a pagan chieftain of Leinster, and Brocca, a Christian Pict and slave who had been baptized by Saint Patrick. Some accounts of her life suggest that Brigid's father was in fact from Lusitania, kidnapped by Irish pirates and brought to Ireland to work as a slave, in much the same way as Saint Patrick. Even though she was reared in a Druid household, she decided early in life to dedicate her life to God alone as a Christian. She refused many good offers of marriage and received a nun's veil from Bishop Macaile of Westmeath.

Gathering around her a group of women, Brigid, in 470, founded a nunnery at Kildare, a place whose name meant "Church of the Oak." 
To secure the sacraments, Brigid persuaded the anchorite Conlaed to receive Episcopal ordination and to bring his monks to Kildare, thus establishing the only known Irish double monastery of men and women. Brigid actively participated in policy-making decisions in Church conventions. One story has it that she herself received Episcopal orders, which may reflect only the fact that she exercised the  authority that was customarily wielded by Medieval abbesses.

Saint Brigid is celebrated for her generosity to the poor.
For example, When a leper woman asked for milk she was given milk but also healed of her leprosy. 
Another story tells of Brigid's taming of a wolf at the request of a local chieftain whose pet dog had been accidentally killed by a peasant.

Yet another story tells of her, when as a child, she gave away her mother's entire store of butter. The butter was then replenished in answer to Brigid's prayers

At her most famous shrine Brigid taught the peasants how to gather and use herbs for their healing properties, how to care for their livestock, and how to forge iron into tools.

Her feast day, February 1, was long held sacred as Imblog, the Celtic festival of Spring.

Not only was St. Brigid a patroness of students, but she also founded a school of art, including metal work and illumination. Her small oratory at Cill-Dara (Kildare) became a center of religion and learning, and developed into a cathedral city.
From the Kildare scriptorium came the wondrous book of the Gospels, which elicited unbounded praise from Giraldus Cambrensis, but which has disappeared since the Reformation. According to this twelfth- century ecclesiastic, nothing that he had ever seen was at all comparable to the "Book of Kildare", every page of which was gorgeously illuminated, and he concludes a most laudatory notice by saying that the interlaced work and the harmony of the colours left the impression that "all this is the work of angelic, and not human skill". 
Small wonder that it is assumed that book was written night after night as St. Brigid prayed, "an angel furnishing the designs, the scribe copying".

Several of Brigid’s miracles occurred on Easter Sunday. On this day, a leper had come to her to ask for a cow. She asked for a time to rest and would help him later; however, he did not wish to wait and instead stated he would go somewhere else for a cow. Brigid then offered to heal him, but the man stubbornly replied that his condition allowed him to acquire more as a leper than he would if he were healthy. After convincing the leper that this was not so, she told one of her maidens to have the man washed in a blessed mug of water. After this was done, the man was completely cured and vowed to serve Brigid.

On another occasion, Brigid was traveling to see a physician for her headache. They were welcomed to stay at the house of Leinsterman. His wife was not able to have children that survived except for two daughters that had been dumb since their birth. Brigid was traveling to Áth with the daughters when her horse suddenly startled, causing her to wound her head on a stone. Her blood mixed with the water here. Brigid then instructed one of the girls to pour the bloodied water onto her neck, in God’s name, causing the girl to be healed. The healed sister was told to call her sister over to be healed as well, but the later responded that she had been made well when she bowed down in the tracks. Brigid told the cured sisters to return home and that they also would birth as many male children that their mother had lost.

Brigid also performed miracles that included curse elements as well. When on the bank of Inny, she was given a gift of apples. She later entered a house where many lepers begged her for these apples, which she offered willingly. The nun who had given the gift to Brigid was irritated by this saying that she had not given the gift to the lepers. Brigid was angered at the nun for withholding from the lepers and therefore cursed her trees so they would no longer bear fruit, rendering them barren. Yet another virgin also gave Brigid the same gift as the nun, and again Brigid gave them to begging lepers. This time the virgin asked that she and her garden be blessed. Brigid then said that a large tree in the virgin’s garden would have twofold fruit from its offshoots, and this was done.

Viewing the story of St. Brigid from a critical standpoint we must allow a large margin for the vivid Celtic imagination and the glosses of medieval writers, but still the personality of the founder of Kildare stands out clearly, and we can with tolerable accuracy trace the leading events in her life.

Her friendship with St. Patrick is attested by the following paragraph from the "Book of Armagh", an authentic eighth century manuscript. Between St. Patrick and St. Brigid, the columns of the Irish, there was so great a friendship of charity that they had but one heart and one mind. Through him and through her Christ performed many miracles.

Brigid died about 523 AD at Kildare, outside whose small cathedral the foundations of her fire-house are still shown to tourists. Her remains are said to have been re-interred, at the time of the Danish invasions of the ninth century, alongside those of Patrick and Columba, at Downpatrick.

Brigid was very popular both in Scotland and England, where many churches have been dedicated to her. The best known of them is the church that was designed by Sir Christopher Wren on Fleet Street in London.

Hundreds of place names in her honour are to be found all over both Scotland and Ireland.

Kilbride is one of Ireland’s most widely spread place names, At last count, there are 43 Kilbrides located in 19 of Ireland’s 32 counties

Brigid-related names in Scotland and England include several Bridewells or Brideswells, (commemorating in their names the presence of a sacred well dedicated to Brigid)

Brigidine sites include the original Bridewell Palace in London which became synonymous with jail houses through the English speaking world.

Brigid's skull has been preserved in the church of St Joao Baptista at Lumiar near Lisbon airport in Portugal since 1587 and is venerated on February 2 (not February 1, as it is elsewhere)

St Brigid’s head was reputedly carried to King Diniz of Portugal in 1283 by three Irish Knights traveling to the Aragonese Crusade.
The inscription on the tomb in Lumiar reads:

“Here in these three tombs lie the three Irish knights who brought the head of St. Brigid, Virgin, a native of Ireland, whose relic is preserved in this chapel. In memory of which, the officials of the Table of the same Saint caused this to be done in January AD 1283.” 
A fragment of her skull was brought to St Bridget’s Church, Kilcurry in 1905 by Sister Mary Agnes of the Dundalk Convent of Mercy and in 1928 another fragment was sent by the Bishop of Lisbon to St Brigid’s church in Killester in response to a request from that church.

Thus a short history of St Brigid. Miracle worker, benefactor of the poor, teacher, educator and patroness of Ireland.