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JEREMY:
Hello and welcome to a fresh episode kicking off a new season of Eat
This podcast.
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I'm Jeremy Cherfas. All around the world,
people celebrate important days with important foods.
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In this episode, I'm looking at one country,
Ireland, and one day, Saint Brigid's Day,
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which, for reasons we'll hear, is usually celebrated the night before.
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CASTRÍONA:
So Saint Brigid's Day falls on the 1st of February,
and it marks the first of the four quarter days of the Irish calendar
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year, and these days are significant in that they divide the year into
seasons and they essentially inform agricultural work that should
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happen at that time of year. And actually we still go by that calendar
in Ireland.
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So the 1st of February is the first of spring and still in Ireland,
in spite of what the weather might be like.
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A nd so the other the other quarter days then are May day,
the 1st of May,
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and that's the beginning of our summer in Ireland,
and Lughnasa or August,
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which is the beginning of the harvest,
and then Oíche Shamhna or Halloween,
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um, which marks the end of the harvest and the beginning of the
winter.
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JEREMY:
There are so many stories and legends associated with Saint Bridget,
who's one of the three patron saints of Ireland.
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Not all of them have to do with food by any means,
but a fair few do.
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And so to find out more, I turned to an expert.
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CASTRÍONA:
My name is Caitríona Nic Philibin ,
and I am a Research Ireland scholar and a PhD student in the
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Technological University of Dublin.
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I'm in my third year of my PhD. I'm a chef by trade,
so my comfort zones are either in the kitchen or behind a screen
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reading these days. Y eah. And my research is based on food in
folklore archives in Ireland.
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JEREMY:
And are all the quarter days celebrated the night before.
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Or is Saint Brigid special in that respect?
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CASTRÍONA:
S o all of the quarter days are celebrated the night before,
and it's believed that on the eve of a quarter day that time is
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liminal. So there's kind of a a thinning of the space between the real
world and the other world.
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A nd there you see a lot of, you see a lot of a juxtaposition between
Ireland's kind of pagan past and Christianity in that,
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you know, we celebrate fairies, but then the poor souls or the old
souls,
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and you see that at Saint Brigid's Day as well.
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JEREMY:
I've also heard that Saint Brigid's Day is called Imbolc.
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CASTRÍONA:
And there is some kind of controversy over what it means.
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I don't do my own research to kind of figure that out,
but I suppose the most significant thing for me is that all of the
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different meanings all relate to food production.
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A nd so the one that I suppose that makes sense to me as a Gaelic
speaker,
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an Irish speaker, is that it means in the belly,
in bolc.
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Bolc is actually the Irish word for belly.
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And so it's related to the beginning of the lambing season.
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B ut there are also suggestions that it could be linked to milk or
milking.
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And we see suggestions that it's specifically derived from ewe's milk,
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the word, the word imbolc. But again,
there we see that connection to food and food production.
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JEREMY:
So what are the foods of of Saint Brigid?
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CASTRÍONA:
So we see lots of potatoes, unsurprisingly in Irish cuisine,
and but also dairy.
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Dairy is really, really significant to Irish cuisine even before the
introduction of the potato.
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And Brigid herself is also, was also considered to be a master brewer.
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And there is one miracle attributed to her that she turned a bathtub
of water into beer,
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which sure would make her very popular.
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JEREMY:
And was Saint Brigid herself known as a cook?
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CASTRÍONA:
So not specifically as a cook, although there is one miracle
attributed to her where she did cook.
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The miracle tells that she had some unexpected guests,
a group of I think it was priests and their retinue,
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and she had no food. so she sent her servant to to get some food,
and the servant came back with a seal,
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which apparently Bridget cooked so superbly that they had the best
meal they had ever had in their lives.
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B ut more often we see miracles around kind of hospitality,
which I suppose that one also could be linked to hospitality.
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But where Brigid creates food, where there was no food before for
people,
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be they poor people or people who call on her.
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A nd then we also see miracles where she manages to convert people
from paganism to Christianity again through the use of
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foodstuffs, milk i n this particular case,
where she called on the house of a pagan and they had no food to offer
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her, but she was parched. So they gave her a drink of milk from the
churn,
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and they poisoned it. Of course, Brigid knew that it was poisoned,
so she made the cross on the drink with a piece of straw from the
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ground, and the drink was safe. And therefore the pagans,
seeing her,
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her powers, were converted and became the best Christians in all of
the parish.
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JEREMY:
And who was she? How much do you know about Saint Brigid herself?
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CASTRÍONA:
So my understanding of it is that the stories about Saint Brigid have
changed,
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you know, throughout the course of history. B ut we know that she was
born in Dundalk,
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County Louth, which is just a border county in Ireland between the
Republic of Ireland and the north of Ireland in around 451 AD.
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And we know that her father wanted her to marry a rich man,
but that she was very much dedicated to her beliefs.
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And really the stories about Brigid's kind of kindness,
they start from when she was around a teenager.
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We also know that she established a monastery in County Kildare,
and that is why Saint Brigid's Day is celebrated,
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you know, with some significance in County Kildare.
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But then after that, as you can imagine,
as the long time has passed and the stories change,
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I suppose, to suit different circumstances.
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JEREMY:
And to celebrate Saint Brigid's Eve.
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Are there special dishes that are cooked specifically on that evening?
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CASTRÍONA:
Yeah. So my own work utilizes folklore archive,
and that's where I get a lot of my information,
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or most of my information from . And what I have found is that they
would make boxty to celebrate Saint Brigid's
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Eve. Boxty is a mixture of cooked mashed potato,
grated raw potato and either buttermilk or egg,
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and it can be cooked on the pan and you sometimes see it referred to
as boxty pancakes.
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Or it can be boiled as a dumpling and that would be served with melted
butter and sugar.
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And it's also a dish that you find at Christmas time,
which suggests,
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you know, that the celebration of Saint Brigid or Saint Brigid's Eve,
was as significant a holiday as Christmas would have been,
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which is not the case anymore, although we have seen a huge resurgence
in the celebration of Saint Brigid today.
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Otherwise, we have reports from folklorists of dishes that would be
consumed in the celebration,
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where we would have mutton and bacon and fowl and colcannon,
which is mashed potato made with onion or scallions and again,
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buttermilk and butter. As well as sowans.
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I don't know if you've ever come across sowans.
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JEREMY:
That's fermented oats?
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CASTRÍONA:
Yeah. So it's like the original oat milk.
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I think it's amazing that we had oat milk in Ireland long before there
was ever a trend for it.
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S o it's fermented oatmeal and oat husks,
and it can be made into either a,
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or consumed as either a drink, depending on how thin it is or kind of
a flummery,
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so it sets with the starch from the oats.
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JEREMY:
But these dishes, I mean, when I've visited Ireland,
boxty is everywhere.
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S o has it expanded from being a special dish to something that you
get any time,
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any place, like so many luxury foods or special foods have done?
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Or was it always kind of common but just special on Saint Brigid's
Eve?
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CASTRÍONA:
I would imagine it would have always been common,
considering the ingredients are ingredients that would have been on
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hand for a good part of the year in Ireland.
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I think probably you would see the celebratory aspect of it in the
serving of it,
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perhaps with sugar, as sugar would not necessarily have been easily
available.
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I mean, for me personally, growing up in Ireland and we would have
eaten a lot of traditional foods growing up,
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I actually never had boxty until I went to a restaurant in Temple Bar
called the Boxty House,
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a really good restaurant for anyone who's ever visiting Temple Bar in
Dublin.
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But I think it depends on where you come from.
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So you see a good concentration of boxty around the border counties
Cavan,
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Monaghan and so not necessarily everywhere.
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JEREMY:
And what about the dairy aspect of it?
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Y ou mentioned dairy being important.
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Were there special dairy dishes for for Saint Brigid's Eve?
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CASTRÍONA:
So I think more so we see the use of dairy in dishes,
and then we also see stories linking Brigid to dairy ,
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kind of which drives that idea that that dairy was significant.
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So, you know, there was a tradition that you would leave your butter
outside on the windowsill or on the Clyde (???),
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which is an old type of stone wall,
for Saint Brigid to bless as she passed on Saint Brigid's eve.
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And that would protect your supply of dairy for the coming year.
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Saint Brigid herself was ... There are miracles about Brigid being
able to milk the cows three times a day so that she could feed
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everybody in the monastery. Yeah, it was it was quite a significant
foodstuff.
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JEREMY:
Yeah. Modern dairy is only just catching up with that.
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What about, w hat about these Saint Brigid's crosses?
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Now, I've seen them. But what's the significance of Saint Brigid's
crosses?
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And what do they look like?
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CASTRÍONA:
I'm sure you've seen the four legged Saint Brigid's cross.
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And I think a lot of people think that that's the most common. But
actually, that was popularised in the 1960s when our national
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broadcaster chose it as their logo ,
so that is the cross that that most people know.
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A nd as I said, it's four legged and it is made from rushes.
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But there are many, many kinds of different crosses.
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And I think the biggest collection of them in Ireland is in the Museum
of Country Life in County Mayo.
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It's well worth a visit for anyone visiting the west of Ireland.
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It's a really beautiful museum, and so many of the crosses are made
with rushes,
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and they may have four legs or three legs or ...
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And they come in various different sizes,
and they would be hung around the house to welcome Saint Brigid.
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Or they could be given to newlyweds to protect their house or ...
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And to ... In the hopes that they may produce children.
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You see a lot of things around fertility at Saint Brigid's Day with
the spring awakening.
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B ut in terms of food, we see crosses used in sheds for animals,
where they would be hung above the door to protect the animals.
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But then we also see them in the planting of crops.
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So there's a beautiful story that a folklore informant told actually
in County Roscommon whilst making a cross himself.
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And we see that same juxtaposition between Ireland's pagan past and
Christianity,
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where he is making a cross with a small sheaf of unthreshed oats,
potato and a slender rod of sallow.
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He calls it a scallop. The cross would then be thrust up in the thatch
and left there until the first sowing of the oats for the year,
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after which it would be removed and the seed used from it.
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In the first planting before planting,
the seed would be covered in hen dung,
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a sovereign remedy against witchcraft and fairy machinations,
and then sprinkled with holy water and a little salt.
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The cross would then be replaced until the first sowing of the potato,
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which would then be cut up and used as the,
you know, the first seed potato on Good Friday.
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And then it would be put back up on the thatch and removed the
following year and replaced with a fresh cross.
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So again that's you know, that juxtaposition.
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We see the hen dung and the holy water when really you've got
fertilizer and liquid.
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JEREMY:
But in the old pagan tradition, hen dung is more than just a
fertilizer?
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CASTRÍONA:
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. But I think the interesting thing is that we
are seeing because Saint Brigid's Day itself is a Christian holiday.
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But within the celebration of it, we are also seeing the kind of
carrying on of those pagan traditions,
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perhaps unbeknownst to people, through superstitious practices.
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JEREMY:
Well, and finally, is there a tradition around Saint Brigid of of
charity?
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I mean, you say she fed people who came to her and and fed the whole
monastery and all the rest of it,
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but is there a general tradition about hospitality to strangers?
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CASTRÍONA:
Yes. Well, again, you know, in those miracles that I mentioned before,
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she feeds people who come to visit her.
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But there is also another miracle that I came across in the course of
this research of the Schools Collection,
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where Brigid called to a house that a man had no food to offer her,
and the cupboards were bare,
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and but he showed her kindness. And after she left,
he found that the cupboards had been completely stocked with
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everything that he might need. S o you do see some kind of charitable
donations of food also.
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JEREMY:
L et's just talk about one other thing.
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You said earlier on that there's been an expansion in the celebration
of of Saint Brigid's Eve,
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Saint Brigid's Day. H ow has that taken place?
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And what do you think has been driving it?
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CASTRÍONA:
I would say that ... So there are several factors. There's one very
practical factor in that after the pandemic,
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the Irish government added a bank holiday to the Irish calendar,
and it is on Saint Brigid's Day.
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So, you know, there is all of a sudden kind of a drive and funding for
celebration of that day because it's good for tourism,
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it's good for business, and it's good for the hospitality industry.
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So that would be one one aspect of it.
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I also think in general, we've seen a huge resurgence in interest in
traditions and folklore,
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which I think, again, we can maybe link to the pandemic.
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I do think after a big scare, I suppose people tend to maybe look
inwards and go back to their roots.
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And so we have seen a, you know ...
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There are other traditions, not just Saint Brigid's Day,
like the Mummers or the Wren Boys on Saint Stephen's Day have become
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really popular again. So, you know,
I think that those two reasons have been big driving forces in the
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resurgence of the celebration of Saint Brigid's Day.
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JEREMY:
Caitríona Nic Philibin , who's currently expanding her study of food
and folklore,
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and Saint Brigid to stories collected in the 1950s in Northern
Ireland.
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There's a huge amount on Saint Brigid available online and it can be
hard to find your way around.
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I'll put links to a few pieces by Caitríona,
along with a couple of tunes composed specially to celebrate the day,
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in the show notes at Eat This Podcast.com.
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And as we're starting a new year and a new season,
a quick reminder that there's a transcript for each episode on the
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website, made possible thanks to the generosity of the good people who
assist me with a donation.
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You can join them at Eat This Podcast.com/ Supporters.
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I'm also always happy to hear from you with comments,
suggestions, or even complaints.
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You can email me . Jeremy at Eat This Podcast.com.
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For now though, until the next time from me,
Jeremy Cherfas and Eat This Podcast,
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goodbye and thanks for listening.
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JEREMY:
Hello and welcome to a fresh episode kicking off a new season of Eat
This podcast.
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I'm Jeremy Cherfas. All around the world,
people celebrate important days with important foods.
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00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:25,400
In this episode, I'm looking at one country,
Ireland, and one day, Saint Brigid's Day,
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which, for reasons we'll hear, is usually celebrated the night before.
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CASTRÍONA:
So Saint Brigid's Day falls on the 1st of February,
and it marks the first of the four quarter days of the Irish calendar
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year, and these days are significant in that they divide the year into
seasons and they essentially inform agricultural work that should
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00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:53,240
happen at that time of year. And actually we still go by that calendar
in Ireland.
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00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:59,280
So the 1st of February is the first of spring and still in Ireland,
in spite of what the weather might be like.
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00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:04,700
A nd so the other the other quarter days then are May day,
the 1st of May,
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00:01:04,700 --> 00:01:08,900
and that's the beginning of our summer in Ireland,
and Lughnasa or August,
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00:01:08,900 --> 00:01:12,260
which is the beginning of the harvest,
and then Oíche Shamhna or Halloween,
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00:01:12,300 --> 00:01:15,260
um, which marks the end of the harvest and the beginning of the
winter.
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00:01:27,700 --> 00:01:35,460
JEREMY:
There are so many stories and legends associated with Saint Bridget,
who's one of the three patron saints of Ireland.
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00:01:36,660 --> 00:01:40,860
Not all of them have to do with food by any means,
but a fair few do.
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00:01:40,900 --> 00:01:44,020
And so to find out more, I turned to an expert.
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00:01:44,940 --> 00:01:52,060
CASTRÍONA:
My name is Caitríona Nic Philibin ,
and I am a Research Ireland scholar and a PhD student in the
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00:01:52,060 --> 00:01:54,580
Technological University of Dublin.
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00:01:54,700 --> 00:02:04,200
I'm in my third year of my PhD. I'm a chef by trade,
so my comfort zones are either in the kitchen or behind a screen
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00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:10,840
reading these days. Y eah. And my research is based on food in
folklore archives in Ireland.
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00:02:10,960 --> 00:02:14,960
JEREMY:
And are all the quarter days celebrated the night before.
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00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:17,520
Or is Saint Brigid special in that respect?
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00:02:17,920 --> 00:02:25,320
CASTRÍONA:
S o all of the quarter days are celebrated the night before,
and it's believed that on the eve of a quarter day that time is
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liminal. So there's kind of a a thinning of the space between the real
world and the other world.
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00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:39,120
A nd there you see a lot of, you see a lot of a juxtaposition between
Ireland's kind of pagan past and Christianity in that,
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00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:44,880
you know, we celebrate fairies, but then the poor souls or the old
souls,
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00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:47,240
and you see that at Saint Brigid's Day as well.
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00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:51,960
JEREMY:
I've also heard that Saint Brigid's Day is called Imbolc.
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00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:56,200
CASTRÍONA:
And there is some kind of controversy over what it means.
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00:02:56,800 --> 00:03:03,300
I don't do my own research to kind of figure that out,
but I suppose the most significant thing for me is that all of the
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00:03:03,300 --> 00:03:07,340
different meanings all relate to food production.
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00:03:08,340 --> 00:03:13,900
A nd so the one that I suppose that makes sense to me as a Gaelic
speaker,
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an Irish speaker, is that it means in the belly,
in bolc.
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00:03:18,660 --> 00:03:21,820
Bolc is actually the Irish word for belly.
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00:03:21,820 --> 00:03:26,460
And so it's related to the beginning of the lambing season.
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00:03:26,900 --> 00:03:31,620
B ut there are also suggestions that it could be linked to milk or
milking.
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00:03:31,740 --> 00:03:35,300
And we see suggestions that it's specifically derived from ewe's milk,
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00:03:35,340 --> 00:03:40,780
the word, the word imbolc. But again,
there we see that connection to food and food production.
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00:03:40,940 --> 00:03:43,380
JEREMY:
So what are the foods of of Saint Brigid?
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00:03:44,580 --> 00:03:50,780
CASTRÍONA:
So we see lots of potatoes, unsurprisingly in Irish cuisine,
and but also dairy.
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00:03:50,820 --> 00:03:56,540
Dairy is really, really significant to Irish cuisine even before the
introduction of the potato.
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00:03:57,300 --> 00:04:01,460
And Brigid herself is also, was also considered to be a master brewer.
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00:04:01,460 --> 00:04:07,240
And there is one miracle attributed to her that she turned a bathtub
of water into beer,
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00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:09,320
which sure would make her very popular.
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00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:15,440
JEREMY:
And was Saint Brigid herself known as a cook?
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00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:23,360
CASTRÍONA:
So not specifically as a cook, although there is one miracle
attributed to her where she did cook.
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00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:32,400
The miracle tells that she had some unexpected guests,
a group of I think it was priests and their retinue,
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00:04:32,400 --> 00:04:38,240
and she had no food. so she sent her servant to to get some food,
and the servant came back with a seal,
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00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:45,080
which apparently Bridget cooked so superbly that they had the best
meal they had ever had in their lives.
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00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:54,400
B ut more often we see miracles around kind of hospitality,
which I suppose that one also could be linked to hospitality.
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00:04:54,400 --> 00:04:58,800
But where Brigid creates food, where there was no food before for
people,
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00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,520
be they poor people or people who call on her.
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00:05:02,230 --> 00:05:11,393
A nd then we also see miracles where she manages to convert people
from paganism to Christianity again through the use of
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00:05:11,393 --> 00:05:20,430
foodstuffs, milk i n this particular case,
where she called on the house of a pagan and they had no food to offer
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00:05:20,430 --> 00:05:24,470
her, but she was parched. So they gave her a drink of milk from the
churn,
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00:05:24,470 --> 00:05:31,150
and they poisoned it. Of course, Brigid knew that it was poisoned,
so she made the cross on the drink with a piece of straw from the
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00:05:31,150 --> 00:05:36,470
ground, and the drink was safe. And therefore the pagans,
seeing her,
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00:05:36,630 --> 00:05:40,670
her powers, were converted and became the best Christians in all of
the parish.
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00:05:41,150 --> 00:05:45,870
JEREMY:
And who was she? How much do you know about Saint Brigid herself?
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00:05:46,670 --> 00:05:50,270
CASTRÍONA:
So my understanding of it is that the stories about Saint Brigid have
changed,
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you know, throughout the course of history. B ut we know that she was
born in Dundalk,
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00:05:56,470 --> 00:06:05,970
County Louth, which is just a border county in Ireland between the
Republic of Ireland and the north of Ireland in around 451 AD.
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00:06:07,290 --> 00:06:14,130
And we know that her father wanted her to marry a rich man,
but that she was very much dedicated to her beliefs.
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00:06:14,810 --> 00:06:22,410
And really the stories about Brigid's kind of kindness,
they start from when she was around a teenager.
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We also know that she established a monastery in County Kildare,
and that is why Saint Brigid's Day is celebrated,
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you know, with some significance in County Kildare.
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00:06:33,570 --> 00:06:38,570
But then after that, as you can imagine,
as the long time has passed and the stories change,
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I suppose, to suit different circumstances.
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00:06:43,450 --> 00:06:46,930
JEREMY:
And to celebrate Saint Brigid's Eve.
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Are there special dishes that are cooked specifically on that evening?
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00:06:51,690 --> 00:06:57,650
CASTRÍONA:
Yeah. So my own work utilizes folklore archive,
and that's where I get a lot of my information,
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00:06:57,650 --> 00:07:07,630
or most of my information from . And what I have found is that they
would make boxty to celebrate Saint Brigid's
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00:07:07,630 --> 00:07:15,990
Eve. Boxty is a mixture of cooked mashed potato,
grated raw potato and either buttermilk or egg,
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00:07:16,630 --> 00:07:21,870
and it can be cooked on the pan and you sometimes see it referred to
as boxty pancakes.
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00:07:21,870 --> 00:07:27,030
Or it can be boiled as a dumpling and that would be served with melted
butter and sugar.
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00:07:27,790 --> 00:07:30,790
And it's also a dish that you find at Christmas time,
which suggests,
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00:07:30,830 --> 00:07:39,470
you know, that the celebration of Saint Brigid or Saint Brigid's Eve,
was as significant a holiday as Christmas would have been,
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00:07:39,510 --> 00:07:44,950
which is not the case anymore, although we have seen a huge resurgence
in the celebration of Saint Brigid today.
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00:07:44,990 --> 00:07:49,990
Otherwise, we have reports from folklorists of dishes that would be
consumed in the celebration,
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00:07:49,990 --> 00:07:59,470
where we would have mutton and bacon and fowl and colcannon,
which is mashed potato made with onion or scallions and again,
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00:07:59,470 --> 00:08:04,370
buttermilk and butter. As well as sowans.
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00:08:04,370 --> 00:08:06,050
I don't know if you've ever come across sowans.
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00:08:06,490 --> 00:08:08,490
JEREMY:
That's fermented oats?
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00:08:09,130 --> 00:08:11,370
CASTRÍONA:
Yeah. So it's like the original oat milk.
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00:08:11,410 --> 00:08:17,010
I think it's amazing that we had oat milk in Ireland long before there
was ever a trend for it.
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00:08:17,170 --> 00:08:23,290
S o it's fermented oatmeal and oat husks,
and it can be made into either a,
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00:08:23,290 --> 00:08:26,850
or consumed as either a drink, depending on how thin it is or kind of
a flummery,
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00:08:26,850 --> 00:08:29,490
so it sets with the starch from the oats.
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00:08:30,170 --> 00:08:36,170
JEREMY:
But these dishes, I mean, when I've visited Ireland,
boxty is everywhere.
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00:08:36,210 --> 00:08:44,210
S o has it expanded from being a special dish to something that you
get any time,
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00:08:44,210 --> 00:08:48,650
any place, like so many luxury foods or special foods have done?
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00:08:48,650 --> 00:08:53,650
Or was it always kind of common but just special on Saint Brigid's
Eve?
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00:08:54,490 --> 00:09:00,330
CASTRÍONA:
I would imagine it would have always been common,
considering the ingredients are ingredients that would have been on
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00:09:00,330 --> 00:09:02,730
hand for a good part of the year in Ireland.
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00:09:02,810 --> 00:09:07,270
I think probably you would see the celebratory aspect of it in the
serving of it,
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00:09:07,310 --> 00:09:11,910
perhaps with sugar, as sugar would not necessarily have been easily
available.
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00:09:12,590 --> 00:09:17,350
I mean, for me personally, growing up in Ireland and we would have
eaten a lot of traditional foods growing up,
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00:09:17,470 --> 00:09:22,390
I actually never had boxty until I went to a restaurant in Temple Bar
called the Boxty House,
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00:09:22,430 --> 00:09:26,190
a really good restaurant for anyone who's ever visiting Temple Bar in
Dublin.
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00:09:26,190 --> 00:09:29,030
But I think it depends on where you come from.
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00:09:29,030 --> 00:09:33,510
So you see a good concentration of boxty around the border counties
Cavan,
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00:09:33,510 --> 00:09:37,950
Monaghan and so not necessarily everywhere.
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00:09:38,870 --> 00:09:41,670
JEREMY:
And what about the dairy aspect of it?
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Y ou mentioned dairy being important.
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Were there special dairy dishes for for Saint Brigid's Eve?
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CASTRÍONA:
So I think more so we see the use of dairy in dishes,
and then we also see stories linking Brigid to dairy ,
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kind of which drives that idea that that dairy was significant.
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So, you know, there was a tradition that you would leave your butter
outside on the windowsill or on the Clyde (???),
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which is an old type of stone wall,
for Saint Brigid to bless as she passed on Saint Brigid's eve.
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And that would protect your supply of dairy for the coming year.
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00:10:20,770 --> 00:10:27,050
Saint Brigid herself was ... There are miracles about Brigid being
able to milk the cows three times a day so that she could feed
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everybody in the monastery. Yeah, it was it was quite a significant
foodstuff.
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00:10:32,170 --> 00:10:34,610
JEREMY:
Yeah. Modern dairy is only just catching up with that.
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00:10:36,130 --> 00:10:40,570
What about, w hat about these Saint Brigid's crosses?
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Now, I've seen them. But what's the significance of Saint Brigid's
crosses?
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And what do they look like?
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CASTRÍONA:
I'm sure you've seen the four legged Saint Brigid's cross.
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And I think a lot of people think that that's the most common. But
actually, that was popularised in the 1960s when our national
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broadcaster chose it as their logo ,
so that is the cross that that most people know.
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A nd as I said, it's four legged and it is made from rushes.
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But there are many, many kinds of different crosses.
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And I think the biggest collection of them in Ireland is in the Museum
of Country Life in County Mayo.
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It's well worth a visit for anyone visiting the west of Ireland.
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It's a really beautiful museum, and so many of the crosses are made
with rushes,
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and they may have four legs or three legs or ...
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And they come in various different sizes,
and they would be hung around the house to welcome Saint Brigid.
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Or they could be given to newlyweds to protect their house or ...
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00:11:43,790 --> 00:11:47,590
And to ... In the hopes that they may produce children.
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You see a lot of things around fertility at Saint Brigid's Day with
the spring awakening.
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00:11:54,230 --> 00:12:03,270
B ut in terms of food, we see crosses used in sheds for animals,
where they would be hung above the door to protect the animals.
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00:12:03,270 --> 00:12:06,130
But then we also see them in the planting of crops.
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00:12:06,130 --> 00:12:14,410
So there's a beautiful story that a folklore informant told actually
in County Roscommon whilst making a cross himself.
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And we see that same juxtaposition between Ireland's pagan past and
Christianity,
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where he is making a cross with a small sheaf of unthreshed oats,
potato and a slender rod of sallow.
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He calls it a scallop. The cross would then be thrust up in the thatch
and left there until the first sowing of the oats for the year,
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00:12:34,290 --> 00:12:37,410
after which it would be removed and the seed used from it.
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In the first planting before planting,
the seed would be covered in hen dung,
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a sovereign remedy against witchcraft and fairy machinations,
and then sprinkled with holy water and a little salt.
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00:12:48,930 --> 00:12:52,050
The cross would then be replaced until the first sowing of the potato,
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00:12:52,090 --> 00:12:57,650
which would then be cut up and used as the,
you know, the first seed potato on Good Friday.
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00:12:58,610 --> 00:13:05,440
And then it would be put back up on the thatch and removed the
following year and replaced with a fresh cross.
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00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:09,280
So again that's you know, that juxtaposition.
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00:13:09,280 --> 00:13:14,160
We see the hen dung and the holy water when really you've got
fertilizer and liquid.
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00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:21,600
JEREMY:
But in the old pagan tradition, hen dung is more than just a
fertilizer?
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00:13:22,560 --> 00:13:31,160
CASTRÍONA:
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. But I think the interesting thing is that we
are seeing because Saint Brigid's Day itself is a Christian holiday.
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But within the celebration of it, we are also seeing the kind of
carrying on of those pagan traditions,
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00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:40,240
perhaps unbeknownst to people, through superstitious practices.
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JEREMY:
Well, and finally, is there a tradition around Saint Brigid of of
charity?
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I mean, you say she fed people who came to her and and fed the whole
monastery and all the rest of it,
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but is there a general tradition about hospitality to strangers?
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00:14:02,760 --> 00:14:07,380
CASTRÍONA:
Yes. Well, again, you know, in those miracles that I mentioned before,
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she feeds people who come to visit her.
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00:14:08,980 --> 00:14:15,580
But there is also another miracle that I came across in the course of
this research of the Schools Collection,
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where Brigid called to a house that a man had no food to offer her,
and the cupboards were bare,
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00:14:22,860 --> 00:14:29,060
and but he showed her kindness. And after she left,
he found that the cupboards had been completely stocked with
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00:14:29,060 --> 00:14:34,860
everything that he might need. S o you do see some kind of charitable
donations of food also.
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00:14:35,620 --> 00:14:38,580
JEREMY:
L et's just talk about one other thing.
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You said earlier on that there's been an expansion in the celebration
of of Saint Brigid's Eve,
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00:14:46,100 --> 00:14:50,020
Saint Brigid's Day. H ow has that taken place?
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00:14:50,020 --> 00:14:52,060
And what do you think has been driving it?
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00:14:53,780 --> 00:15:00,380
CASTRÍONA:
I would say that ... So there are several factors. There's one very
practical factor in that after the pandemic,
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the Irish government added a bank holiday to the Irish calendar,
and it is on Saint Brigid's Day.
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00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:14,160
So, you know, there is all of a sudden kind of a drive and funding for
celebration of that day because it's good for tourism,
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it's good for business, and it's good for the hospitality industry.
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00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:20,400
So that would be one one aspect of it.
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00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:26,160
I also think in general, we've seen a huge resurgence in interest in
traditions and folklore,
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00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:29,320
which I think, again, we can maybe link to the pandemic.
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I do think after a big scare, I suppose people tend to maybe look
inwards and go back to their roots.
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00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:40,720
And so we have seen a, you know ...
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There are other traditions, not just Saint Brigid's Day,
like the Mummers or the Wren Boys on Saint Stephen's Day have become
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00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:53,320
really popular again. So, you know,
I think that those two reasons have been big driving forces in the
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resurgence of the celebration of Saint Brigid's Day.
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JEREMY:
Caitríona Nic Philibin , who's currently expanding her study of food
and folklore,
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and Saint Brigid to stories collected in the 1950s in Northern
Ireland.
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There's a huge amount on Saint Brigid available online and it can be
hard to find your way around.
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I'll put links to a few pieces by Caitríona,
along with a couple of tunes composed specially to celebrate the day,
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in the show notes at Eat This Podcast.com.
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And as we're starting a new year and a new season,
a quick reminder that there's a transcript for each episode on the
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website, made possible thanks to the generosity of the good people who
assist me with a donation.
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You can join them at Eat This Podcast.com/ Supporters.
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00:16:46,220 --> 00:16:51,860
I'm also always happy to hear from you with comments,
suggestions, or even complaints.
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You can email me . Jeremy at Eat This Podcast.com.
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For now though, until the next time from me,
Jeremy Cherfas and Eat This Podcast,
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goodbye and thanks for listening.
