Dublin City Council has again opted to celebrate a pagan goddess on the feast of St Brigid. The celebration, taking place between 30 January and 2 February, is part of a national holiday introduced in 2023 to commemorate St Brigid, the Patroness of Ireland, and also to coincide with the ancient Gaelic festival of Imbolc, a seasonal marker of spring’s beginning.
However, over the past four years, the council has chosen to give little emphasis to the saint’s life, and instead to highlight a Celtic goddess, also called Brigid, about whom little is known and who is first mentioned in the 10th century, some 500 years after the Christian saint. The council explains that the festival, called Brigit: Dublin Celebrating Women, “honours the Celtic goddess Brigit, who embodies inspiration, healing, magic, smithcraft, wisdom, poetry, protection, fire and earth.”
