How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

Brigid of Kildare (ca. 454-524 CE) is one of Ireland’s three patron saints, venerated alongside St. Patrick and St. Columba. Cahill views her as one of Patrick’s apostolic successors. Hagiographers credit her with establishing the double monastery—one that included men and women—of Kildare and serving as its abbess. Cahill argues that her prominence exemplifies the Irish respect for powerful women that continued after Christianization: “In these new monastic city-states, a woman could reign as Medb [a fictitious pagan Irish queen] had once done over Connacht” (172).

Her legendary story survives in two hagiographies, both of which were composed about 100 years after her death. According to the hagiography authored by the Irish monk Cogitosus, Brigid was the daughter of an enslaved concubine and an Irish chieftain. She converted to Christianity; this was possibly at Patrick’s direction, according to Cahill. Her family pressured her to marry, which is a common trope in hagiographies, especially those of female saints; however, she remained committed to her vow of chastity. Like Patrick and Columba, Brigid traveled across Ireland, engaged in missionary work, and founded more religious houses. The hagiographies attribute numerous miracles to her.

Brigid is also a Celtic goddess’s name, and some of the saint’s attributes are derived from this pre-Christian deity; this prompts questions about the authenticity of accounts of her life. For example, she is associated with miracles that involved taming wild beasts, as well as others in which she purportedly produced abundant food from inanimate objects, such as making bacon from tree bark or turning water into milk. The pagan goddess Brigid is likewise associated with animals and food. Similarly, the church celebrates St. Brigid’s feast day on February 1, which is also the date of Imbolc, the Celtic pagan celebration of spring that involved veneration of the goddess. Cahill accepts Brigid as a historical figure but acknowledges the legendary nature of her hagiographies and Celtic influences on Christianity’s development and acceptance in the country.

Cahill views Irish missionary and monk St. Columbanus (or Columban) and his monks as Patrick’s successors who evangelized the pagan masses. Columbanus traveled from Ireland to Britain, Gaul, and the Kingdom of Burgundy in the late 500s CE. The Burgundian monarch Childebert invited Columbanus and his reportedly 12 monks—a number that echoes that of Christ’s disciples—to convert this Frankish kingdom to Irish Christianity. They established three monasteries in Burgundy, as well as many sister houses across Western Europe. Columbanus was forced to leave Burgundy, however, over his criticism of the Burgundian rulers’ greed and his alienation of local clerics who took issue with Irish traditions such as personal confession.

He traveled to Switzerland, where he reunited with one of his monks, St. Gall, before heading south into Lombardy, in today’s Northern Italy, where he founded a monastery known as Bobbio. Bobbio went on to produce influential medieval clerics and scholars, including Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert of Aurillac). Several of Columbanus’s writings are extant, including sermons and epistles. He is also the author of the poem known as the “Boat Song,” in which he encourages his monks to persist in their spiritual endeavors like sailors struggling to row a ship. His writings indicate he received a superior education in the monastic school of Bangor in Ulster, where his clerical career began.