St. Brigid of Kildare (Walsh)

The following is from Fr. Thomas Walsh's History of the Irish Hierarchy, published in New York in 1854, chapter xlviii, at p. 483-6:

St Brigid the foundress of Kildare and the patroness of the church of Ireland was descended of an illustrious family of Leinster. Her father Dubhtach was of royal blood being of the race of Eochad, brother to the celebrated Con of the hundred battles. Her mother Brocessa was of the noble house of O Connor in the southern part of the territory of the Bregii between Dublin and Drogheda. Both were Christians according to the most creditable account. The mother of the holy virgin is everywhere spoken of as the wife of Dubhtach and consequently it cannot be admitted that St. Brigid was of illegitimate birth. Her father is represented as a noble and pious man still more noble through his spouse and their holy offspring: Dubhtachus ejus erat genitor cognomine dictus clarus h omo meritis clarus et a proavis Nobilis atque humilis mitis pietate re pletus Nobilior propria conjuge prole pia  Nor could such an assertion be reconciled with the circumstance of the parents having been Christians and strict ones as then were in Ireland nor with the rank of her mother's family. Usher, Ware and others have passed over the narrative of this circumstance as undeserving of notice.

St. Brigid was born at Faughert about two miles north of Dundalk and in a district which was formerly considered a part of Ulster. Various are the surmises regarding the year of her birth but it may with Usher be assigned to the year 453. Adhering to this computation she was twelve years of age or allowing her birth to have occurred in 451, the earliest assigned, she was in the fourteenth year of her life when St. Patrick died AD 465, neither does St. Brigid in the most consistent and authentic account of St. Patrick appear to have been consecrated a virgin nor to have founded a monastery during the lifetime of the apostle. She may have been known to him on account of her singular sanctity conspicuous even in her early life. In the tripartite life of St. Patrick mention is made only once of St. Brigid when it relates that the saint listening to a sermon of St. Patrick's fell asleep and was favored with a vision relative to the then state of the Irish church and its future vicissitudes. St. Patrick desiring her to tell what she saw Brigid informed him that she at first saw a herd of white oxen amidst white crops then spotted ones of various colours after which appeared black and dark coloured oxen these were succeeded by sheep and swine wolves and dogs jarring with each other. The Almighty conceals from the wise and imparts to the little ones in whom there is no guile the secrets of his ways and while the scribes and pharisees and the other enemies of our Redeemer were contriving plans to ensnare the Son of God and put him to death the children of Juda received him in triumph exclaiming Hosanna to the Son of David. In the narrative then of this vision there is nothing repugnant to the councils of God.

Our patroness received a good education and to singular modesty and propriety of manners united an extraordinary degree of charity towards the poor. Instances are related of the interposition of Providence in replenishing the store which she applied to her benevolent purposes. When arrived at a proper age her parents were anxious to have her settled in the married state but she announced her resolve to remain a virgin to which they assented. She then applied to the holy bishop St. Maccailleus who being well assured of her good disposition admitted her into the number of sacred virgins by covering her with a white cloak and placing a white veil over her head. This occurrence is said to have taken place at Usny hill, Westmeath, where probably the holy bishop resided or was engaged in the exercise of his pastoral functions. St. Brigid must have been then in the sixteenth year of her age as that was the earliest at which the ceremony of admission was permitted. We are assured that when kneeling at the foot of the altar during the time of her profession the part on which she knelt being of wood recovered its original freshness and continued green to a very late period. It is also related that seven or eight other virgins assumed the veil with her and that some of them together with their parents besought her to remain with them in their country a wish with which she complied and being named to govern her companions by the bishop she remained for some time in a place which the bishop assigned them in his district supposed to have been about Kilbeggan in Westmeath.

In her new position the fame of her sanctity spread far and near and crowds of young women and widows applied to her for admission into her convent. As it would be inconvenient to assemble so many persons in one place and as the good of the church required that those pious ladies should be established in other districts and of which they might have been natives we find St. Brigid visited other parts of the country Teffia of which St. Mel was bishop having been the first. Erc the bishop of Slane was one of her friends whom she is said to have accompanied to Munster when paying a visit to his relatives as he was of that country. A synod having been held in the plain of Femyn Erc spoke highly of St. Brigid and of the miraculous powers with which she was endowed by the Almighty. Thence she is said to have gone with her female companions to the house of a person with whom she spent a considerable time and who lived near the sea. In those early days of the church of Ireland before the erection of nunneries virgins consecrated to God were wont to live with their friends and relatives and could as often as duty required appear their virtue and sanctity being, as Fleury observes, their cloister.

We next find her in the plain of Cliach in the county of Limerick where she obtained it is said from a chieftain liberty for a man whom he held in chains. From that country she went to the territory of Labrathi Hy Kinsellagh in south Leinster and tarried there for some time having not seen her father for several years she thence proceeded to his residence to pay him a visit and after a short stay set out for Connaught and fixed her residence together with some ladies of her institution in the plain of Magh ai or Hai in the level country of Roscommon. While in this territory she was occupied in forming various establishments for persons of her own sex according to the rule she had drawn up. As the great reputation of St. Brigid and the supernatural gifts with which she was endowed attracted persons from all parts of Ireland to the place of her residence.  The people of Leinster thought that they were best entitled to her services as being of a Leinster family.  They accordingly sent a deputation to the part of Connaught where she then was consisting of several respectable persons and friends of hers to request that she would come and fix her residence among her own people.  She acceded to their wishes and having arrived in that district was received with the greatest joy she was immediately provided with a residence for herself and the pious companions of her journeys and to which was annexed some land as a help towards the maintenance of her establishment this place obtained the name of Kildare there being a large oak tree near her habitation.

St. Brigid and her nuns were poor and frequently alms were brought to her nunnery still whatever she possessed she liberally shared with the poor and it is said that in order to find relief for the destitute she gave in charity some very valuable vestments the bishops used to wear on solemn festivals to strangers and particularly bishops and religious persons she was particularly hospitable her humility was so great that she occasionally tended the cattle on her land. The establishment at Kildare being resorted to from all quarters it became necessary to enlarge the buildings in proportion to the number of her nuns and postulants as well as provide for the spiritual direction and assistance both for the institution itself and its frequent visitors. And knowing that such an advantage could not be efficiently supplied without a bishop she applied and procured the appointment of a holy man to preside over the nascent church of Kildare and the others belonging to her institute. Some privilege of this sort existed in the days of Cogitosus as Kildare was the ecclesiastical metropolis of Leinster. This is perhaps one of the earliest instances of religious being exempted from the jurisdiction of the ordinary or the bishop of the district in which such houses were situated. Conlaeth was the person whom St. Brigid recommended as worthy of being raised to the exalted dignity of bishop. In his transit to the other life St. Conlaeth, bishop of Kildare, preceded the holy foundress, having died on the 3d of May, 519. The nunnery of Kildare was founded about the year 487. St Brigid died on the 1st of February, 525, as St Columbkille is said to have been born four years prior to the death of our national patroness AD 521.

Traditional Latin Mass in Longford Cathedral

For the 40th Anniversary of the death of Bishop James Joseph McNamee, who had been Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise from 1927 to his death on 24th April, 1966, our Association was granted the singular privilege by Bishop Francis Duffy, his successor as Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise of organising a Traditional Latin Mass in the newly refurbished Longford Cathedral celebrated by Bishop Colm O'Reilly, another of Bishop McNamee's successor's as Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise. On Sunday, 24th April, 2016, members and friends of the Catholic Heritage Association gathered to pray for the soul of one of the most liturgically conscious of Ireland's Bishops of the mid-20th Century, who had attended the first three Sessions of the Second Vatican Council.

Saint Mel of Ardagh

Today the Irish calendars commemorate a saint very much linked to Saint Brigid, Bishop Mel of Ardagh. He is also linked to Saint Patrick, with a number of sources claiming that he is the nephew of the apostle to the Irish, being the son of his sister Dareca. This woman was reputedly a mother to no less than seventeen early Irish bishops and saints, which has led some scholars to speculate that she may have been a mother in the spiritual, rather than the biological, sense. Saint Mel figures most prominently in the Life of Saint Brigid by being the bishop who conferred not merely the veil of the religious life upon her but, 'intoxicated by the spirit of God' bestowed the rite of episcopal ordination. I have already described this incident in the entry for Saint Brigid's feast from the Martyrology of Oengus and in the Homily from the Leabhar Breac. We can turn now to Volume 2 of Canon O'Hanlon's Lives of the Irish Saints for an account of Saint Mel's life:

THE festival, commemorated by the Irish Church, on this day, recalls to our minds, that gratitude we owe to our early Christian missionaries, who helped to gather and labour, in the same field of noble enterprise with St. Patrick... This renowned saint is classed among the primitive fathers of our Irish Church. He was a contemporary, and, it has been asserted, a near relative to the great Apostle, St. Patrick. At the very dawn of Christianity in our island, an illustrious champion and preacher of the Gospel had been already prepared, for a strenuous encounter, with the spirit of darkness. He is named Mel or Melus, in old Latin acts; and, this title was typical of those honied stores of Divine wisdom and of saintly qualities, which had been hived within his breast. A special Life of this holy man is not known to exist. From various ancient Acts of St. Patrick, and of St. Brigid, as also from other sources, Colgan has compiled a Life of St. Mel, and he has admirably annotated it. In like manner, the Bollandists have inserted Acts of Saints Mel, Melchuo, Mune, and Rioc, Bishops, at the 6th day of February. From these authorities shall we chiefly draw succeeding materials, to render intelligible the recorded actions of the holy Bishop Mel, the special patron of Ardagh diocese.

He seems to have been born, in the earlier part of the fifth century. It is said, Saint Mel or Melus was a nephew to the great Irish Apostle Patrick, and whose sister Darerca is named as Mel's mother.

St. Mel built a famous monastery at Ardagh. At this place, also, it is recorded, he exercised the jurisdiction both of abbot and of bishop. Among other celestial endowments, our saint received the gift of prophecy, whereby he was enabled to predict future events. This was exemplified in St. Brigid's case, and soon after he had arrived in Ireland from Britain. He foretold the greatness and sanctity of that holy virgin, while yet carried in her mother's womb. Some time subsequent to St. Brigid's birth, St. Mel administered to her the Sacrament of Confirmation. In conjunction, probably, with his disciple St. Machaille, Mel likewise bestowed the religious veil on that youthful spouse of Christ. Afterwards, the greatest friendship existed between our saint and the future abbess, as recorded in St. Brigid's Life.

St. Brigid seems often to have visited St. Mel, when she resided not far from Ardagh. At one time, the king of that district entertained both these holy personages; and,- a remarkable miracle was wrought by the illustrious abbess, at a banquet, given in their honour. The kindness of St. Mel, interceding with the king for a supposed transgressor, on this occasion, pleasingly illustrates the holy bishop's character. St. Mel and St. Moelchu—both being regarded as distinct—are stated to have accompanied the abbess, to a synod, which was held at Tailten, in Meath.

It is said, that St. Mel wrote the Acts, virtues and miracles of his uncle, St. Patrick, while this latter holy man had been living for, the great Apostle of Ireland is supposed to have survived our saint five years. For his death, a.d. 466 has been assigned. Mel departed this life, at Ardagh, however, about the year 487 or 488. St. Oengus the Culdee, the Martyrology of Tallagh, Marianus O'Gorman, Cathal Maguire, and the Martyrology of Salisbury, record this holy bishop's festival, at the present date. It was probably that of his death, which is usually assigned to the 6th of February, and according to accounts left by our Irish hagiographers. This corresponds with the 8th of the February Ides.

Notwithstanding the celebrity of this saint, Mel, Epis.—meaning bishop— is the only entry, in the Martyrology of Tallagh, concerning him. Besides this, we read, in the Martyrology of Donegal, as having a festival on this day, Mel, Bishop of Ard-achadh, in Tethbha. He was a disciple of Patrick, according to the same authority; but, nothing has been noted, about his relationship. Mel is regarded, as the first bishop over the see of Ardagh, and, he has been constantly venerated as the special patron saint of that diocese.

The Martyrology of Donegal entry reads:

6. B. OCTAVO IDUS FEBRUARII. 6.

MEL, Bishop, of Ard-achadh in Tethbha, disciple of Patrick, A.D. 487. Darerca, sister of Patrick, was his mother.

and the Annals of the Four Masters records his death thus:

The Age of Christ 487. The ninth year of Lugaidh. Mel, Bishop of Bishop of Ard-achadh, in Teathbha, disciple of Patrick died.

The photograph below shows a painted scene of Saint Mel and Saint Brigid preaching to the people of Ardagh. It is from Saint Brigid's church in Ardagh, County Longford.