St Brigid has given us a chance to celebrate modern Irish women – and everything that means

Trans women and non-binary people in Ireland face great hurdles, especially when accessing healthcare services and being misunderstood by others.

The Enoch Burke saga has focused on his audacious actions — and become almost comedic. But this overshadows the opposite side of the tale, the challenges facing trans and non-binary teenagers in classrooms with unsupportive teachers.

We are largely reborn from the days of a patriarchal, heteronormative society into the light of a new era. This new festival can celebrate femininity without being too prescriptive.​

Can we embrace trans women and non-binary folk and leave space for however gender and identity are expressed? Because transgender people have existed in worldwide cultures since ancient times.

Our national heroines are pictured in britches, although Gráinne Mhaol and Queen Medb’s reasons for choosing to dress as men were often necessitated by safety or practicality rather than an expression of gender.

This bank holiday is both a time to remember the past and decide what the future will look like. Biddies and Bridies may remember a time when our society lived closer to the rhythms of the land.

Older people appreciate Brigid’s role as the herald of the spring’s fecund bounty as the patron saint of newborns, midwives, dairy maids and cattle.

For those of us unlikely to have any peers with the name of Brigid, these themes chime with TikTok feminine energy trends for dating. Brigid’s role in founding her monastery shows her as a GirlBoss of her time, having the agency, ambition and self-direction to achieve great things.

Brigid accomplished a lot. Reputed to have turned bathwater into beer, her prayers stilled the wind and rain. The home-woven rush cross, the Brídeóg dolls; her customs have been rescued from the obscurity of a museum plaque or yellow-edged textbook to the prominence of influencers’ Instagram grids under the noses of teens.

This cohort may not appreciate the saint’s Catholic background. Brigid’s virtues are reminiscent of older goddesses, especially her closeness to the land, like the Greek goddess Persephone or the Roman goddess of spring Proserpina.

The first recorded mentions of the Imbolc festival date from the 10th century, or the pre-Christian era. Brigid was a triple goddess — of healing, fire, and of poetry.

This dual aspect to Brigid cements the festival, not as a religious but a cultural one. And despite her ties to motherhood and lactation, it’s also important to include space on St Brigid’s day for child-free and childless women.

That this is the first public holiday named after a woman is a reminder of Ireland’s patriarchal past. Gender inequalities persist in our pay packets and the division of household work and caring duties.

Last week Trinity College unveiled four busts of landmark Irish women in its Long Room: mathematician Ada Lovelace, scientist Rosalind Franklin, dramatist Lady Augusta Gregory and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Irish embassies and consulates from Berlin to Delhi are using the holiday to showcase the country’s leading female figures.​

What else do we want St Brigid’s Day to represent? A more genteel affair than the unbridled ribaldry that awaits us on March 17.

We can’t yet know if it will be more meaningful than an extra night on the razz and a bonus lie-in.

But perhaps there’s an appreciation of the grand stretch approaching. Spring is unfurling with its milder days, and there’s a tantalising optimism about what is yet to come.

Brigid is our patroness, the matriarch of Ireland and the perfect fusion of antiquity and modernity.

It is not a competition between the old ways or the new ways.

Just like Brigid sits astride the Catholic and pagan faiths, they are both ultimately two sides of the same coin.

Tomorrow is a celebration of Irish women.

All Irish women.