"Ode To Bridget" (Gabhaim Molta Bríghde), sung by Nóirín Ní Riain

Click here to listen on YouTube

Nóirín talks about her spiritual journey, and of Brigit. "A River of Stars," part 1/2. Turas d'Anam (Journey Of Your Soul)

Image of Nóirín from Le Télégramme

Lúireach Bhríde (Brigid's Breastplate) - a song to celebrate the lives of Irish women

Go to the RTÉ page where you will be able to listen to this beautiful song.

This article was originally published on Wednesday, 7 Nov 2018.

In 2018, RTÉ Radio 1 commissioned a new song to celebrate the lives of women in Ireland and, in this landmark year for women’s rights, to honour the lived experiences of our Irish foremothers. 

The idea for this collaborative project was three-dimensional. Poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin was commissioned to write the lyrics, the group Landless was invited to adapt the poem to music and filmmaker Tadhg O’Sullivan was asked to interpret the work on film - the resulting collaboration was premiered at this year's RTÉ Radio 1 Irish Folk Awards.

Watch their collaboration, entitled Lúireach Bhríde, above.

Annemarie Ní Churreáin

For the text, poet Annemarie Ní Churreáin revisited the pre-Christian stories associated with Brigid, commonly known in Ireland as a triple Goddess of poetry, healing and smithcraft. It is said that when Brigid’s outlawed son Ruadán died in battle, Brigid began to keen and this was the first time ever that keening was heard in this country. Despite her many reincarnations in Irish culture and beyond, Brigid remains a symbol of female power and strength, with the ability to express and transcend according to – and despite – the world around her.

Landless

Today at The Brigid Well in Kildare, where this text was composed, the oaks are decorated with ribbons, pagan emblems, and infant cloths in memory of the Goddess. A ‘lúireach’ (or a ‘lorica’) is a protective prayer or a ‘breastplate’. The original version of this text takes the form of a poem and is dedicated to the children of The Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home at Tuam, Galway. 

Images: both images and all text are from the original RTÉ article.

“The Clothes Shrine” by Seamus Heaney

The Clothes Shrine

It was a whole new sweetness

In the early days to find

Light white muslin blouses

On a see-through nylon line

Drip-drying in the bathroom

Or a nylon slip in the shine

Of its own electricity — 

as if Saint Brigid once more

Had rigged up a ray of sun

Like the one she’d strung on air

To dry her own cloak on

(Hard-pressed Brigid, so

Unstoppably on the go) –

The damp and slumped and unfair

Drag of the workaday

Made light of and got through

As usual, brilliantly.

Image: Photo of clothes on line (close-up) by Manu B on Unsplash.

Audio: Listen to Seamus Heaney reading his poem here.

“A Ribbon for Brigid” by Hugh O'Donnell

A Ribbon for Brigid

from Time to Call Home

by Hugh O’Donnell

 

 

“It’s instinctive,” Teresa says. “You feel it in your blood. Earth stirs, shoots appear.” She’s talking about Brigit and the sense of her embodiment in the full bellied life fest of spring.

 

Goddess and national saint, girl and mother in a monastery garden, not meek and mild but shrewd and savvy. Seer and overseer, she gives protection to entrances and steppingstones, to poets and blacksmiths, animals and land.

 

She is neither to be contained in a monastery nor corralled by the state, this mystic of the natural world whom we celebrate in the ancient practice of weaving a sun-cross of rushes. By doing so, we are weaving together in her name all strands of wisdom from death-resurrection to the rhythm of seasons on our sun-shocked earth.

 

I call up Elizabeth for guidance. She describes how she celebrates the ritual for Brigid’s eve. At dusk, she leaves a length of ribbon outside so that as Brigid passes in the dewfall she will bless it. Afterwards, it will be cut into pieces and shared with neighbours who can apply the healing fabric to a body’s pain.

 

Imbolc, February 1, is the first day we invite her wise and wholesome presence into our lives. For those of us who have lived at a distance from the earth, it is still not too late to find our way home again in the company of Brigid as we take her hand and go play like children beneath the weeping birch where clumps of snowdrops shed their light.

 

"Blessing Against Oppression and Submission” by Mael Brigde

Blessing Against Oppression and Submission

 

you who ran unconstrained

across the Curragh

stand between me and slavery

 

as you shattered the lies

of the shrewd

would-be rapist

would-be owner of his

intended thrall

freed his victim

now sovereign again

over

spirit   body   heart

 

bless me

protector of women and the bound

 

you knew your path

though yourself a slave

made them set you free

 

set me free

 

enquired of the mute child

what do you want?

though others cried   impossible!

did not stir until

she found and made her choice

 

let me know the truth

of my own thoughts

the liberty to follow them

where I must

 

bless       preserve

enlighten me

 

long against danger

give me aid

 

 

 

Image: Young, long-haired, black woman running in grass. Image is blurred. Photo by Nsey Benajah on Unsplash

"drown me out" & "summoning" by cadence b.

 

drown me out

I do not feel alive

until it's already tomorrow

and I haven't slept in days

but even when the near-forgotten spectre

of drowsiness rears its head

still

I keep myself awake

because I don't want to hear myself feel

I drown out the sound of my thoughts

with as many decibels as I can muster

and I drown out the shaking of my hand

with the precision of the pencil and the brush

and I drown out the pound of my heart

with the rhythm of my footsteps

but I can't drown out the flame that's been lit in my core

the way it flickers

when I'm least prepared

I knew from the moment you rose from the steps

and I turned away so that I wouldn't have to face the light

I need you to drown me out

so that I stop trying to drown myself

 

 

summoning

beneath a dark moon

in the shadow of an eclipse

to which I spoke my true name

and heard it echoed back to me

I showed you my demons

and instead of running away

you cast a circle

to summon more

 

 

 

Image: Photo of lunar eclipse by Paul Pastourmatzis on Unsplash.

Note: These poems were originally published in after / the / rift by cadence b. on Brigid’s Forge.

 

“A Brigid's Girdle - for Adele” & “Brigid’s Girdle” by Séamus Heaney

A Brigid's Girdle - for Adele

 

Last time I wrote I wrote from a rustic table
Under magnolias in South Carolina
As blossoms fell on me, and a white gable
As clean-lined as the prow of a white liner

Bisected sunlight in the sunlit yard.
I was glad of the early heat and the first quiet
And a delicious, articulate

Flight of small plinkings from a dulcimer
Like feminine rhymes migrating to the north
Where you faced the music and the ache of summer
And earth's foreknowledge gathered in the earth.

Now it's St Brigid's Day and the first snowdrop
In County Wicklow, and this a Brigid's Girdle
I'm plaiting for you, an airy fairy hoop
(Like one of those old crinolines they'd trindle),

Twisted straw that's lifted in a circle
To handsel and to heal, a rite of spring
As strange and lightsome and traditional
As the motions you go through going through the thing.

Brigid’s Girdle

On St Brigid’s Day, the new Life could be entered
By going through her girdle of Straw rope:
the proper way for men was right leg first,
Then right arm and right shoulder,
Head then left
Shoulder, arm and leg,
Women drew it down
Over the body and stepped out of it
The open they came into by these moves
Stood opener, hoops came off the world,
They could feel the February air
Still soft above their heads and imagine
The limp rope fray and flare like wind-borne gleanings
Or an unhindered goldfinch over ploughland

Note: From the “Crossings” Collection by Séamus Heaney

Image: "looping rope on plain background" by Kier in Sight Archives. From Unsplash. CC2.0 Modified to black and white by Mael Brigde.