Marking 1,500 years since the passing of Ireland’s foremost female saint, Brigid 1500 will celebrate the extraordinary life of St Brigid.

Taking place this month in County Kildare, Ireland, Brigid 1500 will bring together artists, performers, enthusiasts, communities and visitors to celebrate St Brigid in a contemporary way with a culturally rich program of events.

The program will engage with the values that St Brigid championed such as faith and spirituality, biodiversity and sustainability, arts and culture, social justice, peace, hospitality and education. 

Highlights of Brigid 1500 will include a St Brigid’s day concert that will feature leading Irish artists including Eleanor McEvoy, Moya Brennan of Clannad and Mary Coughlan.

 Light shows will feature prominently in the festival. A candlelight pilgrimage and ritual at St Brigid’s well will take place and two grand fiery processional events will be held in the towns of Maynooth and Kildare. The tower on the Hill of Allen will be bathed in white light to symbolise hope for the new year. 

St Brigid’s relic, which has been absent from her Co. Kildare roots for nearly a millennium, made a triumphant return last month in time for the festival. The homecoming procession drew hundreds of onlookers to Kildare. Brigid, originally interred in a Kildare monastic church, became a pilgrimage shrine, but her remains were relocated to Downpatrick Cathedral during Viking raids, only to be lost and miraculously rediscovered in 1185.

Fast forward to the 1930s, when a fragment of her relic returned to Ireland in the care of the Brigidine Sisters from Tullow, Co. Carlow. Now, this precious piece is enshrined in Kildare’s St Brigid’s parish church, marking a significant cultural and spiritual reunion.

St Brigid’s Day and the Celtic festival of Imbolc, which marks the beginning of spring, are traditionally marked on 1st February but there is also a public holiday on the first Monday of February. In the run-up to St Brigid’s Day it is customary to make a St Brigid’s cross from rushes or straw to display in the home as protection from fire and evil.

Kildare is the place most associated with the saint as it was there that she founded a monastery. A visit to Kildare should include stopping at St Brigid’s Cathedral and Round Tower and dropping into the heritage centre to enjoy a virtual reality tour of the town’s history. Here you will meet not only St Brigid but also the pre-Christian goddess Brigid, and other characters from Ireland’s Celtic mythology.

  • WHO WAS ST BRIGID?
  • St Brigid is the Matron Saint of Ireland. Her feast day is February 1st. She is also the saint of babies, printing presses and sailors.
  • St Brigid was born with a celestial radiance. Legends tell of a column of fire rising from her head. 
  • St Brigid performed miracles, including healing the sick.
  • St Brigid founded Kildare Monastery, a center of learning.
  • St Brigid obtained land for a convent from the King of Leinster by miraculously expanding her cloak to cover vast acres.
  • People remember her by weaving St Brigid’s Crosses from bog reeds.