Known as Bridey, “Mary of the Gaels”, and even as Biddy, Saint Brigid was born in 451 A.D. in Faughart, near Dundalk in county Louth.

Her mother Brocassa was a slave and therefore Brigid was born into slavery. Her father Dubtach (Duffy) was a pagan Gaelic chieftain.

Due to her “charitable disposition” her father tried to sell her but finally he freed her from slavery. She then set out successfully to have her mother also freed from slavery.

She along with many women at the time defied the practice of being married to a man chosen by their father. They became “Brides of Christ”.

When she was first ordained into the church the presiding bishop, Saint Mel, a nephew of Saint Patrick, “somehow” read the prayers making her a bishop.

She is credited with opening the first female Christian monastery community in Ireland.