On Thursday 01 Feb is Brigid’s Day and the following Monday is a new public holiday in Ireland since 2022.
Brigit or Brid was possibly a celtic goddess. Also possibly, she was a woman that lived from 451-525 and who founded a monastery in Kildare. And also possibly the whole thing is complete invention. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigid_of_Kildare
St. Brigid is one of three national saints of Ireland (St. Patrick, St Brigid and St Columba/Columcille), but she was never canonised (made a Saint by the Catholic Church), but instead was a “popular Saint” and allegedly in 1969 her name was removed from the list of saints (mylesdungan.com/2019/02/01/fake-histories5-was-saint-brigid-a-canonised-saint-of-the-roman-catholic-church/. This seems to be confirmed by archive.org/details/CalendariumRomanum1969/page/n85/mode/2up)
Her Feast Day is the 1st of February, but as a non-Saint she can’t really have a feast day. St. Bridget of Sweden who still is a Saint has her feast day on 23 July or 08 October, not on 01 Feb (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridget_of_Sweden) (Some people thought that the two Brigid’s have the feast day on the same day, but that is incorrect.)
Somehow St. Bridget got linked to Imbolc (probably through her Celtic goddess connection), which is the celtic festival of the start of the brighter half of the year, which is NOT the same as the start of Spring.
So on 01 Feb is the feast day of a woman/god that probably never existed, who is not a saint and therefore can’t be a national saint of Ireland. And spring starts on 01 March as Met Eireann keeps confirming, not on 01 Feb. Yes, Imbolc is on 01 Feb, but Imbolc is not the start of Spring. Uff, a bit of a mess!?
Confused? No need to be! Many “truths” in life are inventions of our imagination (or someone’s story telling). ;-)
The only slightly annoying thing is that because of this flawed story, a bank holiday that should be in warmer September was put in the first week of cold February. ;-) But at least it’s another public holiday!
Picture by Culnacreann – Own work, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3500722)
