Relics of St Brigid return to her hometown in Ireland after a millennium

Relics of Ireland’s only matron saint are returning to her hometown after almost 1,000 years. Revered relics of St Brigid are coming back to Co Kildare after nearly a millennium.

St Brigid, the mother saint of Ireland, is one of the country’s three national saints along with St Patrick and St Columba. It is believed that St Brigid died in 524 AD and was buried beside the main altar in her monastic church in Co Kildare.

Her grave became an attraction for pilgrims throughout Ireland and Europe and a shrine, adorned with gold, silver, and precious stones, was built for her in the eighth century.

When the Vikings came to Ireland around the year 800 AD, they attacked churches. In anticipation of a Viking attack on the town, the body of St Brigid was moved to Downpatrick in Northern Ireland where she was buried in an unmarked grave beside St Patrick and St Columba.

The grave was unmarked to protect it and to keep the location secret. However, over the passage of time, the location of the saint’s bodies was lost and forgotten and for some 300 years the location of the patron saints of Ireland was unknown.

Solas Bhride

In 1185, the Bishop of Down prayed to God to show him the location of the sacred relics and bodies of the three saints. A beam of light shone on a section of the floor in the dark church. The floor was taken up and the bodies of the three saints were found with St Patrick in the middle and St Brigid and St Columba on either side.

The bodies were properly enshrined in 1186 where they remained for the next 400 years until the shrine was destroyed by Lord Leonard Grey the appointee of King Henry VIII. Although the shrine was gone, St Brigid’s remains were saved and secretly transported to the continent.

It’s believed three Irish knights took a bone fragment from her head to Lumiar, a small town outside Lisbon in Portugal, in the 13th century. The relic is still venerated in the church of St John the Baptist in Lumiar where the knights continued to spend their lives.

The Brigidine Sisters in Tullow, Co Carlow, procured a portion of the Lumiar relic in the 1930s which will now return to St Brigid’s Parish Church in Kildare Town to mark the 1500th anniversary of her death.

Ancient cathedral in Kildare, Ireland

St Brigid’s relics will be returned to Co Kildare next Sunday, January 28. A procession will accompany the relics from Solas Bhride Centre in Tully outside Kildare Town at 10.30am to St Brigid’s Parish Church in Kildare Town.

The relics will be taken into the church by the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Bishop Denis Nulty, who will celebrate a special mass at 11am. All are welcome to attend and organizers ask people to come early.

David Mongey, Chairman of Into Kildare, said: “The relics of St. Brigid have not been in Co Kildare for nearly 1,000 years. This year is the 1500th year of the passing of the saint and what could be more special than to bring St Brigid’s relics home, where she belongs?

“She built her church in Kildare and her legacy as a peace maker and a protector of nature is still as relevant today as ever. It has been a long process to finally bring her relics back to the county and together with my colleagues at Into Kildare we would like to thank Kildare County Council and the Brigidine sisters for their great work in bringing Brigid home.”

The relics of St Brigid will go on permanent display on January 28 at St Brigid’s Parish Church.

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