St Brigid’s Day: Celtic Goddess to be celebrated in Kerry as pictures show traditional festival preparations

Today, February 1, is special as we celebrate St Brigid’s Day, and events are taking place across the country as we mark the occasion over the new bank-holiday weekend.

The annual Biddy’s Festival takes place in Killorglin, and while this is the first year that St Brigid’s Day is a national holiday, the date has been marked in style in mid Kerry for a few hundred years.

Like many Christian festivals in Ireland, Biddy’s Day is a fusion of ancient Irish pagan traditions and early Christian teachings. Bríd was one part of a trio of Goddesses, the others being Anú and Gobnait.

Bríd is known as the ‘exalted one of learning, poetry and fertility’. During Imbolg, she fertilised the land and, in the tradition of the Biddy, she brings good luck to all households she visits. This luck includes fertility for livestock and bees.

The tradition of going ‘on the Biddy’ goes back to the 18th Century, when scores of Biddy Groups were active all through mid-Kerry.

Marking Celtic Imbolg, Biddy Groups would dress extravagantly and travel from cottage to cottage, house to house, celebrating the sowing of crops and the health of livestock and hives. Music and dancing were and remain part of the Biddy tradition.

Each group carried a Brídeóg, a small effigy of St Brigid, the Irish saint who lived in the 5th and 6th Centuries. At each property, the Biddy captain would ask “is the Biddy welcome here” or “any objection to the Biddy”.

A visit from the Biddy guaranteed good luck, fertility and prosperity. Once a group was allowed in, polkas and sets were danced and great merriment was had.

Pins were stuck to the Brídeóg in thanksgiving for the good luck being bestowed on the family and livestock, and money was given to the Biddy Group.

The money was used for the traditional Biddy Ball, the culmination of the festivities, the traditional drinks being porter for the men and wine or sherry for the women.

The annual Biddy’s Day Festival in Killorglin celebrates the uniqueness of the tradition.

This Saturday, February 4, there will be workshops on St Brigid’s Cross-making, hat-making and butter-making, and at 7pm, the local Biddy Groups will parade in a torch-lit procession, leaving the Fishery and finishing in Library Place.