Saint Brigid of Kildare: Life, Legend and Cult by Noel Kissane (review)

Noel Kissane's Saint Brigid of Kildare is a labor of love from a writer intimate with the saint and her cult. Kissane first encountered Brigit in the legends recounted by his schoolteacher, while growing up in a small Irish village where girls were called Bridge, Bride, Bridie, and Biddy after the saint. Saint Brigit is hard for Irish children to avoid, since she is one of three patron saints of the nation, along with Patrick and Columba. She is hard for a medievalist to avoid, as her name appears across the historical record of Ireland. Her seventh-century vita by Cogitosus of Kildare is the earliest extant hagiography from the island. Cogitosus related Brigit's origins, travels, miracles, and interactions with Irish men and women in the early sixth century. The hagiographer also described the church and community that Brigit supposedly founded at Kildare in the province of Leinster, which not only served as a center of learning, religion, and trade, but also commanded a network of churches and monasteries spread across the province and beyond. Subsequent medieval vitae confirm the importance of Brigit's cult in Ireland, as well as the power and wealth of her successors as abbess of Kildare.

Kissane could not avoid Brigit, either. He wrote a doctoral dissertation about her in 1977 and then, as the years passed, realized that no one had produced a "substantial" or "definitive" (p. 15) scholarly analysis of the saint and her cult. When he retired from his position as Education Officer at the National Library in Dublin in 2003, he wrote this book about the saint's 1500-year history. Kissane's aim was to distinguish "between what was faulty history and what was myth, legend or pious tradition" (p. 15). Many legends about the saint persist: her miraculous interventions in childbirth, her protection of flocks and herds, the healing power of her wells, and the belief that the saint was the avatar of a non-Christian triple goddess Brig or Brigit who cared for poets, craftsmen, and healers. Some scholars have even claimed that Brigit may not have actually existed but was created to Christianize a flourishing feminine cult at Kildare.

Kissane believes in a Brigit who was "one of the most remarkable women in Irish history" (p. 17), although, as he admits, we have no supporting historical documents to tell us who she was, where she came from, and how she sponsored the creation of Kildare. He begins with a brief survey of Brigit's Ireland and the island's initial Christianization by Saint Patrick and others, then, chapter by chapter, describes and analyzes the primary and secondary sources useful for studying Brigit and her influence to the present day. Chapters cover the historiography of Brigit and her cult, the manuscript sources for her life and legend, evidence for devotion to Brigit across centuries, and later printed sources about her, both Irish and Continental. Kissane outlines the spread of Brigit's cult across Ireland and over the waters to the rest of Europe, based on evidence of church dedications and place names. He further treats hymns, poetry, and modern folklore dedicated to Brigit. Finally, he summarizes the modern history of the revived Brigidine Order of vowed women.

The book does not pretend to have a narrative but is essentially a reference work that will be extremely helpful to anyone embarking on a study of Saint Brigit or any aspect of her veneration. Many pages consist of heavily annotated bibliography. There are entire pages of footnoted lists, e.g., 96–97, where Kissane lists a "galaxy of notables scholars, right up to the present day" who wrote about Brigit, beginning with St. Malachy O'Toole, comrade of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and ending with the modern folklorist Dáithí Ó hÓgáin. Likewise...