With Brigid’s Day fast approaching there is an added reason to mark the saint’s birthday on the first of February – from 2022, the date will be a designated national public holiday in the Republic of Ireland.

Next Monday, on January 31, the Mummers Foundation are holding a public lecture at 7.15pm via Zoom online meetings at Fermanagh House, Enniskillen, on the folklore and customs associated with celebrating Brigid.

Everything from fashioning the range of Brigid rush crosses, the making of Brigid straw dolls, the holding of masked ‘Biddy boy’ processions (which ended in the 1950s in Fermanagh) to the different ways of putting a Brigid straw girdle over the body will be explored in detail, with the help of a PowerPoint presentation that has already attracted interest from Poland and the USA.

Mummers Foundation historian Jim Ledwith puts forward the case that Brigid is increasingly viewed as being Ireland’s first saint, having been long associated with the loosening of winter’s grip and the reawakening of spring.

In fact, there is a strong argument that Brigid may have been worshipped as an Earth Mother Goddess long before the coming of Christianity and Saint Patrick.

To this day, the populist folk custom of putting up four-legged Brigid crosses over the threshold of houses, and three-legged crosses in farm buildings for protection against fire, storm, lightning or evil, demonstrates the high esteem held for the protective and healing properties of Brigid, which will be explored in detail at the lecture.

Participants are asked to register for the lecture on Zoom by emailing info@fermanaghhouse.org, or by attending Fermanagh House on the night.

The public lecture forms part of the spring programme supported by the Lough Erne Landscape Partnership with the assistance of the National Heritage Lottery Fund.