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February 27, 2006
AN TOSTAL SOUVENIR PROGRAMME 1953 - CHAPTER 7
Chapter 7 of the 1953 An Tostal Programme was dedicated to the Shrines of St. Brigid. There is an interesting explanation of the meaning of the name of the townland of Loughminane and an explanation of the meaning of 'St. Brigid's Shoes.'SAINT BRIGID’S SHRINES
THE ancient oak on Drumcree under which St. Brigid built her cell or oratory remained standing to the end of the 10th century, and it was held in such veneration that no profane hand dare touch it with a weapon. At the invitation of bishops, the Saint made many journeys through Ireland founding convents, so that her memory is warmly cherished in all parts of the country. The Irish people called their daughters by her sweet name. The wells at which she drank and prayed became blessed wells. The places she visited were forever after under her special protection, and so all over Ireland we have Toberbrides, Rathbrides, Kilbrides. Pilgrims too, lay and cleric, flocked to Kildare by many roads, and St. Brigid was noted for her hospitality to them all. Besides Kildare town on the Green road, there is a large pond or Loch called Lochminane, the formation of which is thus accounted for in the Feilire Aenguis in the Leabhar Breac: “Eighteen bishops came to Brigid from Hui-Brinin Cualand and from Telach na n-espoc toLoch Lemnachta, beside Kildare to the north. So Brigid asked her cook Blathnait whether she had food, and she said she had none. And Brigid was embarrassed, so the angel said the cows should be milked again. And Brigid milked them, and they filled the tubs, and they would have filled all the vessels of Leinster, and the milk came over the vessels, and made a loch thereof. Hence the name Loch Lemnachta, lake of New Milk.”
On the roadside at Tully Gardens there is a holy well dedicated to St. Brigid. It is shown on the 1837 Ordnance map, as well as pointed out by tradition. It was walled in by the Board of Works, and was used by the townspeople before the water from St. John’s Well in Tully East was piped to the town in the early eighties of the last century. From time immemorial too, Brallistown, or as it is called locally the Greallachs, in the west of the same townland has been a place of pilgrimage as being associated with St. Brigid.
Greallach means miry marshy ground on which cows stand. Tradition states that St. Brigid kept her cow here, prayed here, and made butter beside the stream. Her well is pointed out and her “Shoes,” or as they are also called her “Cows” are objects of veneration. These are two granite stones, 32 inches by 12 inches, hollowed out so that the stream water passes through them. According to the flow of water through each of them at certain times of the year, it is said that one cow is “going dry” or is dry, and the other is “a new-milch cow,” or “in full milk.” Owing to the cleaning of the larger stream and the stream from the well, the position of the Shoes or Cows has varied, from the mouth of the well-stream where they seem to have been sixty-two years ago, to a place between the mound and the whitethorn bush. They seem to have been placed in the latter position over thirty years ago, and to have remained here till the Shrines were renovated by the people of Tully in the autumn of 1952. Pilgrims have always prayed on the Mound beside the stream. At noon on Sunday, St. Brigid’s Day, 1953, the Parish Priest blessed St. Brigid’s roadside well at Tully and then proceeding to the Greallachs, in the presence of several hundred parishioners, he blessed St. Brigid’s Well and her “Cows” or “Shoes.” All then joined in the recitation of the Rosary at the seven station-stones, and in a hymn to St. Brigid.
Chapter 7 of the 1953 An Tostal Programme was dedicated to the Shrines of St. Brigid. There is an interesting explanation of the meaning of the name of the townland of Loughminane and an explanation of the meaning of 'St. Brigid's Shoes.'
Posted by mariocorrigan at February 27, 2006 10:11 PM