Within the past week, I had the honour of being interviewed by Amy Panetta MA for her 'The Celtic Feminine Podcast'. The topic of our conversation mainly focused around two figures of history and mythology here in Ireland - Saint Brigid and Saint Patrick.
We also had an opportunity to discuss the history of Mythical Ireland, and how I became interested in Irish mythology, archaeology and prehistory.
There is a huge interest in modern Ireland in the figure of Brigid, but despite the fact that she was a saint, there was an earlier goddess called Brigid, so the following for Brigid is both secular and spiritual. We discussed too the origins of the Brigid's Way annual pilgrimage from Faughart in Louth to Kildare, which began in 2013 after Dolores Whelan and Karen Ward attended a talk I gave about an alignment of sacred sites connecting Brigid's birthplace with her monastery in Kildare.
Our interview took place on the day of spring equinox, which was an important astronomical date both in prehistory (for instance, the largest cairn at Slieve na Calliagh, Loughcrew, points towards Hill of Slane for equinox sunrises) and of course which was the event from which the date of Easter was calculated by the church.
We discussed the significance of the Hill of Slane to both the Brigid alignment and also the story of how Saint Patrick lit the paschal fire there in 432AD.
You can watch the hour-and-a-half conversation on YouTube in the embedded video above.
2 comments
What a lovely down to earth podcast it does enrich our lives thank you
You are on the right path Anthony, and we are blessed for it. Thanks