St Brigid’s Day – 1st February

Public Holiday 6th February 2023

Saint Brigid’s Day

From 2023 there will be a new permanent public holiday established in celebration of Imbolc/St Brigid’s Day. This will be the first Monday in every February, except where St Brigid’s Day, the 1st day of February, happens to fall on a Friday, in which case that Friday 1 February will be a public holiday.

In Ireland, the first of February marks the beginning of Spring and the celebration of Lá Fhéile Bríde, St Brigid’s Day. Like many of other feast days of the Irish calendar, Brigid predates Christianity – her roots lie in the Celtic festival of Imbolc, the feast of the goddess Brigid, celebrated at least five millennia ago. In old Irish, Imbolc means “in the belly”, a reference to lambing and the renewal Spring promises.

Brigid was a triple goddess – of healing, fire, and of poetry – and the saint who took her name, born in 450 AD, carried some of those same associations. The patron saint of poets and midwives, by legend, she maintained a sacred fire by the monastery she founded in Kildare. Alongside St Patrick and St Columcille, she is one of Ireland’s three patron saints.

Brigid’s name can be translated as > the exalted one>. And, over recent years, her festival has come to be an exaltation of Irish women. From Washington to Warsaw, Sydney to Santiago, Ireland’s diplomatic network, in partnership with local communities, host a series of festivals each February celebrating the remarkable contribution Irish women have made – and continue to make – across the world.

Inaugural Saint Brigid’s Day bank holiday cultural programme launched to celebrate women in Ireland

St Brigid, Goddess and Saint, Cashel Library Friday 3rd February