Saint Brigid of Ireland

Saint Brigid of Kildare
Stained glass, St. Joseph Catholic Church, Macon, Georgia, 1903
Virgin, abbess, inspirer
Born	c. 453 Faughart, Dundalk,Ireland (in modern County Louth)
Died	c. 524 (age about 70) Kildare, Ireland
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church Roman Catholic Church Anglican Communion
Feast	1 February
Patronage	babies; blacksmiths; boatmen; brewers; cattle; chicken farmers; children whose parents are not married; children with abusive fathers; children born into abusive unions; Clan Douglas; dairymaids; dairy workers; Florida; fugitives; infants; Ireland; Leinster, mariners; midwives; milk maids; nuns; poets; poor; poultry farmers; poultry raisers; printing presses; sailors; scholars; travellers; watermen

Saint Brigid of Kildare or Brigid of Ireland (Irish: Naomh Bríd; Latin: Brigida; c. 451 – 525) is one of Ireland's patron saints, along with Patrick and Columba. Irish hagiography makes her an early Irish Christian nun, abbess, and foundress of several monasteries of nuns, including that of Kildare in Ireland, which was famous and was revered. Her feast day is 1 February, which was originally a pagan festival called Imbolc, marking the beginning of spring. Her feast day is shared by Dar Lugdach, whom tradition says was her student and the woman who succeeded her.

The saint shares her name with an important Celtic goddess and there are many legends and folk customs associated with her. Some scholars suggest that the saint is merely a Christianization of the goddess. Others suggest that she was a real person who took on the goddess's attributes.

The saint has the same name as the goddess Brigid, derived from the Proto-Celtic *Brigantī "high, exalted" and ultimately originating with Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ-. In Old Irish her name was spelled Brigit and pronounced [ˈbʲrʲiɣʲidʲ]. In Modern Irish she is called Bríd. In Welsh she is called Ffraid (lenited to Fraid), as in several places called , "St Brigit's church"). She is sometimes referred to as "the Mary of the Irish".