Saint Brigid’s Shrine, Faughart

Saint Brigid is one of Ireland’s three great saints along with Saint Patrick and Saint Colmcille. The shrine at Faughart is closely associated with her early life in this part of county Louth. She was a woman of great beauty, charity and ability. Legend has it that the series of stones at her shrine have marks that show here devotion to prayer and the extremes she had to go to fend off unwanted suitors. The shrine attracts thousands of visitors and pilgrims each year particularly around her feast day on February 1 st. Saint Brigid went on to found a convent at Kildare. She is also responsible for one of Ireland’s most enduring symbols the Saint Brigid’s cross made from rushes. Some stories suggest that that she made the cross from rushes that she pulled from the bed of a sick pagan chieftain that she was trying to convert. A different suggestion is that she made the cross from dried rushes to console a dying man of great faith in order to remind him of Christ’s sacrifice. A fragment of her skull is held in Kilcurry chapel a few miles from the shrine