Irish America

Irish America

Irish folklore

Sláinte! Brigid: Goddess and Saint

By Edythe Preet

January / February 1994

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For over a thousand years, February 1 has been celebrated as St. Brigid's Day. Legend holds it was then that the saint placed her foot in a spring outside the village of Liscannor by the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare. Waters warmed; weather improved. Cows filled with milk; butter production expanded. To this day, pilgrims gather at Liscannor's well on Brigid's feast to … [Read more...] about Sláinte! Brigid: Goddess and Saint

Goodbye Columbus, Hello St. Brendan

By Abdon Moriarty Pallasch

July August 1992

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As the rest of America celebrates the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus arriving in the New World, Irish-Americans can boast that one of their own may have beat him by nearly 1,000 years. The idea that Irish monks in an ox-hide boat might have beaten the Conquistadors and the Vikings to America was largely relegated to Irish folklore before 1976. That year, British … [Read more...] about Goodbye Columbus, Hello St. Brendan