SAINT BRIDGET, BRIDGIT

SAINT BRIDGIT, OR BRIDGET

Saint Bridget, by contraction Bride, was born at Fochard in Ulster. She received the religious veil
in her youth from Saint Mel, nephew and disciple of Saint Patrick. She built herself a cell under a large oak, called Kill-dara or cell of the oak. Joined by several of her own sex they formed
themselves into a religious community which branched out into several other nunneries throughout Ireland. They acknowledged her as their mother and foundress. She flourished in the beginning of the sixth century and is named in the Martyrology of Bede.

Her name occurs in most copies of the Martyrology which bears the name of Saint Jerome. She is commemorated in the divine office in most churches of Germany and Paris until the year of 1607. One of the Hebrides, or western islands of Scotland near that of Ila a famous monastery, Brigidiani, was built in her honor. A church of Saint Bridget, in the province of Athol is where a portion of her relics was kept with great veneration in a monastery of regular canons at Aburnethi. Her body was found with those of SS. Patrick and Columba in a triple vault in Down-Patrick in 1185. Their monument was destroyed in the reign of king Henry VIII. The head of Saint Bridget is now kept in the church of the Jesuits at Lisbon.

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