Endnotes
1 See the chapter ‘Epilogue’ in Rees, A and Rees, B: Celtic Heritage, Thames and Hudson, New York, 1978. Also Ford, P, The Poetry of Llywarch Hen, Los Angeles and Berkeley, 1974, pp 16-25. Click on your browser's Back button to return.
2 Collingwood, R.G. and Wright, R.P. : The Roman Inscriptions of Britain, Oxford 1965 and also Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Click on your browser's Back button to return.
3 Birkhan, H: Die Kelten, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissen schaften, Wien, 1997 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
4 I am indebted to Eugene Markey of the County Museum, Ballyjamesduff, Co. Cavan for the information, the book 'Knockbride: A History' and the picture. Click on your browser's Back button to return.
5 Ó hÓgáin, D: Myth, Legend and Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition, Ryan Publishing, London, 1990, pp 60-64 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
6 Ó Riain, P: ‘Pagan Example and Christian Practice: A Reconsideration’ in Cultural identity and Cultural Integration: Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Edel, D., Four Courts Press, 1995 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
7 Connolly, S: Cogitosus’s Life of Brigit in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 117, p.5-27 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
8 Colgan, J: Triadis Thaumaturgae Acta, Louvain, 1647 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
9 Printed with a translation in Three Middle-Irish Homilies, Calcutta, 1877 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
10
There are many different versions of
Brigit’s name. Bríg is found here and in the Second
Battle of Maigh Tuired. Brigit is the form used in the early texts
for the goddess and the saint, although later texts used the form
Brighid for the saint. I am using Brigit throughout here, except
where it appears differently in quotations. Other versions are
Brighde, Bríd, Bridget, Bride and Ffraid or Ffraed, in Wales. Click
on your browser's Back button to return.
11
In Bernard, J.H. and Atkinson, R, eds. The Irish Liber Hymnorum, Vol
II, London, 1892, pp.37-46
The poem continues:
May
Brigid free us
past
crowds of demons!
may
she win for us
battles
over every disease!
May
she extirpate in us
the
vices of our flesh,
she,
the branch with blossoms,
the
mother of Jesus!
The
true-virgin, dear,
with
vast pre-eminence,
may
we be free, at all times,
along
with my Saint of Leinster-folk!
One
(of the two) pillars of the Kingdom,
along
with Patrick the pre-eminent (as the other pillar);
the
vestment beyond (even) splendid (vestments),
the
royal Queen!
May
they lie, after old age,
our
bodies, in sackcloth;
(but)
with her graces may she bedew us,
may
she free us, Brigid!
Brigit ever.
Brigitae per luadem Christum precamur
ut nos celeste regnum habere mereamur. Amen.” Click on your browser's Back button to return.
12 Giraldus Cambrensis: The History and Topography of Ireland, ed. John J. O'Meara, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin Books, 1982 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
13 Baring-Gould, S and Fisher, J: The Lives of the British Saints, London 1907-1913, (4 vols), vol 1, p 285 Click on your browser's back button to return.
14 Parry-Williams, T.H: Canu Rhydd Cynnar p.353 90:11-12 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
15 Ó hÓgáin, D: The Hero in Irish Folk History, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1985 p. 232 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
16 Dorothy A. Bray, ‘The Image of St. Brigit in the Early Irish Church’, Etudes Celtiques, 24 (1987), 209-15 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
17 Coch, John and Carey, John: Celtic Heroic Age, Celtic Studies Publications, Malden, Mass. 1995 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
18 Stokes, Whitley, trans: Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, Facsimile Reprint Llanerch Books, Felinfach, 1995 pp 182-200 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
19 Binchy, D.A: Bretha Crólige in Ériu 12, 1938 pp 1-77Click on your browser's Back button to return.
20 Ó Catháin, Séamus: The Festival of Brigit, DBA Publications, 1995, p 11. Click on your browser's Back button to return.
21 Capra, Fritjof: The Turning Point, Flamingo, London, 1982. See also Capra, Fritjof: The Tao of Physics, Flamingo, 1988 Click on your browser's Back button to return.
