A Canadian in Ireland

La Fhéile Bhride - St. Brigid's Day


St. Brigid was born in Faughart, Co. Louth to a pagan father Dubhthach and a Christian mother Brocessa. She was later Abbess of the monastery at Cill Dara (Kildare) “the Church of the Oak”. She begged some land from the King of Leinster to found her monastery and he promised her as much land as her cloak would cover. She laid her cloak down and it covered the whole of the plains of Kildare and Leighlin.

Tradition tells us that as Brigid explained the passion and death of Christ to the dying pagan chieftain she took some rushes from the floor of the bothan and fashioned a cross. The Old Irish custom of placing a St. Brigid's cross over the doors of dwelling houses and animal shelters thus began. People believed that in so doing Brigid would look after their households and stock and that full and plenty would be theirs in the year ahead.



Brigid died on February 1st 525 and her remains were taken to Downpatrick, Co. Down to be buried with St. Patrick. She is the patroness of Ireland.

St. Brigid's day was on Friday, and I did a bit of tech work for the parish. Scanning in the image of herself to make candle labels and doing up leaflets about Brigid's cross. They were selling candles and crosses after mass to fundraise for charity.

Some information and images from Wikipedia.

The Weather

We Sing A Song To Brigid

Chorus
We sing a song to Brigid
Brigid brings the spring
Awakens all the fields and the flowers
And calls the birds to sing

I hope they were singing good and loud because this has been the our weekend.





Now I'm not one to point fingers as to the cause, but I do have my suspicions.

Tagged Repeatedly

By Words, Elke, and Marie

These are the rules:

*Link to the person that tagged you.

*Post the rules on your blog.

*Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.

*Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.

*Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

I'll be lucky if I can come up with six total, much less six apiece but here goes:

• As a child I was bitten by a camel.
  
• While I like all pets and they like me, I would consider myself a cat-person.
  
• I'm much happier staying up late at night than getting up early in the morning.
  
• I'm a big fan of animated films, particularly ones by PIXAR, Aardman, and Studio Ghibli.
  
• According to my Belbin Team Role Profile , my strengths are as a Teamworker, Implementer, and Completer Finisher.
  
• I'll be going back to Vancouver this summer. (In about 150 days, I wonder why? )
  

I'm sure everyone has been tagged already by now. But if you're reading this and feeling left out, consider yourself IT.

The Irish Have A Way With Words

In the past week I heard two expressions that really caught my ear.

One from an ad off the radio:

He had a face that would turn a funeral down a side street.

And the other from my cousin. Describing her young son being difficult:

He wouldn't lead nor drive.

And Finally

You'll all be happy to hear that I'm feeling much better. I'm totally over the stomach bug and my hand is hardly bothering me at all.