Kerry siblings’ St Brigid’s cross-making skills in great demand

ONE year after they launched a cottage industry of sorts supplying St Brigid’s Crosses from their Abbeydorney home and brother and sister Morgan and Méabh O’Flaherty are hard at work once more keeping the tradition alive like never before.

The siblings’ beautiful crosses are back by popular demand with shops in Lixnaw supplying them by the score – with all of the money going to the vital life-saving units of the Community Air Ambulance and the Banna Sea Rescue.

Morgan (13) conceived the whole project last year, drawing on his family’s long-standing tradition of making the iconic crosses for St Brigid’s Day.

He wanted to give something back to the life-saving agencies that rushed his beloved sister to hospital in Crumlin as she suffered serious febrile seizure – the result of a condition in which her body can struggle to regulate temperature.

Méabh (5) is doing better than ever now and with the help of her big brother is fashioning the St Brigid’s crosses at an impressive rate.

“They got a great response to it last year, raising €640 for the Air Ambulance and Banna Rescue and they’re hoping for a similar result this year,” their dad Morgan Snr told The Kerryman.

It was always a tradition in my family, my grandfather made the crosses for St Brigid’s Day, as did my father. We started making them then and Morgan used to give them out to the neighbours.

It was when one kindly neighbour insisted on giving Morgan money for a cross that the enterprising youngster – now a first-year student at Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí – decided on harnessing the power of the traditional Irish symbol for charity.

“He wanted to do it initially for the Coastguard as Méabh was flown to Crumlin in the big Rescue 115 helicopter. But as the service is not a charity they couldn’t take any donations. That’s when he decided on the Air Ambulance and the Banna Rescue unit.”

The crosses went down a storm locally, with the O’Flahertys flat out keeping the supply going.

“It’s intense going alright. You’d make about six or seven an hour,” Morgan snr explained.

The crosses are available once more in Lixnaw, at: Foley’s Gala; Gibbons’s filling station; Stack’s Londis; Walsh’s Butchers and the Lixnaw Post Office. They are not priced, but people are asked to make a donation on taking them.

Meanwhile, the tradition associated with St Brigid is as strong in Mid-Kerry than ever before seemingly.

Killorglin is even mounting a parade as part of a special Biddy’s Day Festival.

It takes place on Saturday, February 4 next, leaving the Fishery at 4pm and finishing at Library Place.

There will also be a St Brigid Cross Making class and Butter Making Demonstrations in O’Donnell’s Bakery from 11am to 1pm; and a Biddy Hat Making Class in the Sean Scoil from 2pm to 4pm – all part of Killorglin’s Biddy’s Day Fest!