Alternative perspectives on the natural world are reclaiming their place in our collective consciousness. A photograph taken on Imbolc Eve - of sheep on the mountain near Ballingeary in West Cork - became the catalyst for this meditation on Brigid, a sapphic feminist icon woven into the tapestry of Irish mythology.
Brigid’s feast day, long obscured, has been officially restored to the calendar in recent years. In response, a group of artists and I have sought to honour her legacy through the creation of two annual events: Imbolg (2023) and Ab (2024). These gatherings reflect an ongoing exploration of Brigid’s evolving cultural significance - her fire burning anew in art, thought and ritual.
The sheep in the photograph bear the marks of ownership, their wool branded with dye. It is a practice that echoes the ways in which we mark our own children, naming and gendering them before they enter the world, inscribing identity upon them. Brigid, too, has been inscribed upon - saint and deity, patroness of livestock and poets alike. Yet the conflation of her roles raises questions. As a saint, she is bound to the practicalities of animal husbandry; as a goddess, she is fire, fertility and rebirth. One image domesticates, the other transcends, can either show us her essence or is this something unspoken, felt?
Beneath the contemporary revival of Brigid lies an unspoken tension: Who, exactly, are we celebrating? Even within the framework of sainthood, her story diverges. She is, at once, the formidable leader of an early Christian cult in Ireland - a time when women held positions of spiritual authority alongside men - and the docile evangelist, reshaped by later narratives into a model of passive piety.
As Brigid’s festival returns to prominence, we are confronted with these competing legacies. Do we venerate the goddess of sovereignty and transformation? The radical abbess who defied convention? Or the tamed, sanitised, version that centuries of retelling have left behind?
Whatever the answer, one truth remains: Brigid’s fire endures.
