These women were the virgin daughters of the Fire and were called Inghean au dagha; but, as fire-keepers, were Breochwidh. The Brudins, a place of magical cauldron and perpetual fires, disappeared when Christianity took hold. "Being in the Brudins" now means in the fairies. Brigid's shrine at Kildare was active into the 18th century. It was closed down by the monarchy. Originally cared for by nineteen virgins, when the Pagan Brigid was Sainted, the care of her shrine fell to Catholic nuns. The fire was extinguished once in the thirteenth century and was relit until Henry VIII of England set about supressing the monastaries. (8) Sister Mary Minchin, a Brigedian nun at Kildaire relit the flame on Febuary 2, 1996 and the intention is to keep it burning perpetually once again. In 1925, the couple's daughter Cristina (1901–1953), married Francis John Clarence Westenra Plantagenet Hastings, known as Viscount Hastings and later the 16th Earl of Huntingdon; they had one child, Lady Moorea Hastings (4 March 1928 – 21 October 2011), and divorced in 1943. The following year the Viscountess Hastings married Wogan Philipps; that marriage produced no children. Cedric C. Brown, Patronage, Politics, and Literary traditions in England, 1558–1658, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1993. St. Luke, both an apostle and the first Christian physician on record, and, according to legend, also a painter, is—among other things—the patron saint of artists, bookbinders, glassmakers, goldsmiths, lacemakers, painters, and sculptors. Thiemo

To this day there is the unusual blending of Brighid the ancient Goddess with the Saint and how typically Gaelic this is; this mixture of Christian and Old Celtic and pagan lore, exemplified in poetry like this: Is tu gleus na Mnatha Sithe, Brigid is known in the Hebrides as the foster mother of Christ, and this clearly shows the mixing of Christian and pagan influence that is so common here. As foster mother she is of course exceptionally honoured, since in Celtic society the foster parents had special place, they ranked higher than the natural parents, the relationship being considered extremely sacred." (3)EVERAL YEARS AGO Duncan Stoik penned an essay entitled “A New Renaissance: The Church as Patroness of the Arts” ( Challenging the Secular Culture: A Call to Christians; Franciscan University Press: 2016), proposing a three-pronged initiative that the “Church as an institution, as well as individuals, can do to promote a culture of beauty, truth, and life.” I would have preferred his initiative to have been fleshed out in greater detail, but perhaps Stroik, ever the masterful architect, simply chose to lay a good foundation for others who might come after and wish to build upon it.

over the past thirty-five years: the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth, the Restoration, and the naval wars against the Dutch. Like many of his contemporaries, the playwright had lived a life shaped by those events. Born in London, John Crowne emigrated to America during the Interregnum and attended the dourly Puritan Harvard College. When he returned to England after the Restoration, he denounced his Harvard teachers as enemies to the king and began a literary career designed to gain royal patronage.21 In his preface to the printed version of Calisto, Crowne described himself as “invaded, on the sudden, by a Powerful Command, to prepare an Entertainment for the Court.” It was a welcome opportunity but a challenging one, especially for a playwright who had no experience in writing words for music. The choice of plot also presented problems. In the source, a tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the impatient Jupiter rapes the virgin Calisto, which put the playwright in a difficult position: “I employed myself,” Crowne confessed, “to write a clean, decent, and inoffensive Play, on the Story of a Rape, so that I was engaged in this Dilemma, either wholly to deviate from my Story, and so my Story would be no Story, or by keeping to it, write what would be unfit for Princesses and Ladies to speak, and a Court to hear.”22 Crowne’s dilemma took on more urgency because Princess Mary was to play the title role. Aware of the court’s interest in using this drama to feature the duke’s young daughters, the playwright made no effort to maintain the already thin distinction between the mythical nymphs and the real princesses. As soon as Calisto appears, Diana praises her in terms clearly applicable to Mary: Princess Calisto, most admir’d belov’d, The Fairest, Chastest, most approv’d Of all that ever grac’d my Virgin Throng, You, who of great and Royal Race are sprung, Born under Golden Roofs, and bred to ease, To every kind of soft delight, To Glory, Power, and all that might A Royal Virgin please. As Nyphe, a character invented by Crowne, Anne had to make a speech extending this flattery and deferring to her sister: How am I pleas’d my Sisters praise to hear, Though like a little Star I near appear, Nature and Friendship do enough prefer My Name to Honour, whilst I shine in her.23 In 1900, she married Camillo, Marquess Casati Stampa di Soncino ( Muggiò, 12 August 1877 – Roma, 18 September 1946). The couple's only child, Cristina Casati Stampa di Soncino, was born the following year. The Casatis maintained separate residences for the duration of their marriage. They were legally separated in 1914. They remained married until his death in 1946.

Unfortunately, the general attitude today toward great art and artists in the Church in one of apathy at best or disparagement at worse, where opponents level the charge that “that money could have been spent on the poor,” as if artists and those touched by beauty (and who isn’t) are somehow unsympathetic aesthetes who unmercifully trample the poor under foot in the rush to worship in beautiful churches. But we needn’t fall prey to the scourge of the modern charge of either/or—instead we need to embrace the Catholic notion of both/and, which allows the Church to offer God Her greatest musical fruits AND place the same fruits within earshot of all of her children so that Christians poor and rich alike might have their minds and hearts lifted on the wings of sung prayer. Brigid was a goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was a daughter of the chief of the gods, The Dagda, and was known as a goddess of healers, poets, smiths, childbirth and inspiration. Her name means "exalted one". This article by Branfionn NicGrioghair explores the story of Brigid and the later Christian Saint, St. Brigid, who is still honoured to this day, especially in Faughart, her birthplace, and Kildare, where she founded a monastery. Who is Brigid?