St. Brigid of Kildare
Patron of Ireland, dairy workers, poets, blacksmiths, midwives, newborn babies
Saint Brigid (c. 451–525), the 'Mary of the Gael,' is, with Patrick and Columba, one of the three national patrons of Ireland. Tradition says she was the daughter of a pagan chieftain and a Christian bondswoman, baptized in childhood by Patrick himself. Refusing marriage, she founded a double monastery at Kildare — the first community of nuns in Ireland — beside an ancient oak sacred to the druids, building a bridge between the old religion and the new. The cross of woven rushes she made to instruct a dying chieftain is still hung in Irish homes on her feast, the first day of spring in the Celtic calendar.