Brigid’s Worlds

Proceedings from the Brigid 1500 Maynooth University and Kildare County Council Conference

Niamh Wycherley, editor

Collecting essays from leading international academic experts on St Brigit of Kildare and early medieval Ireland, this book marks a unique historical and scholarly moment. Chapters explore the various institutional, literary, material, religious, gendered, political, and territorial worlds inhabited by Brigit, by her successors and by her devotees, from the fifth to the ninth centuries. The varied approaches offer rigorously researched insights into the early Irish Church, the role of women, early Irish society and the growth and spread of early Irish literary culture. Exploring the history of Brigit and her Church of Kildare from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives, the authors collectively investigate the local, national and international significance of, arguably, the most famous woman in Irish history.

Contributors: Niamh Wycherley; Catherine McKenna, David Stifter, Dorothy Ann Bray, Sharon Greene, Catherine Swift, Tiago Veloso Silva, Conor McDonough, Clare Stancliffe, Elizabeth Dawson, Katja Ritari, Thomas Owen Clancy, Jean-Michel Picard, Fabio Mantegazza and Pádraig Ó Riain. 

Niamh Wycherley is assistant professor of medieval Irish history in Maynooth University.