St. Brigid a lesbian?

[Gorgias]

I got my information from:

Ellis, Peter Berrisford. Celtic Women. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992. Pg 149. Ellis, who is working off of one of the earliest versions of The Life of St. Brigid wrote “We seem to be left in little doubt that Brigid had a lesbian relationship with another member of her community. She certainly shared her bed at Kildare with Darlughdacha, whose name means ‘daughter of the sun god Lugh’.”

Not so fast, though: this is exactly the hasty conclusion to which I was alluding in my post.

Critiquing the assertions you’ve shared here, Dennis O’Neill (in “Passionate Holiness”) asserts, “[a]uthors Peter Cherici and, quoting him, Peter Berresford Ellis, retell a variation on the same story… According to Cherici, the story has heretofore overlooked lesbian implications. Ellis agrees with him… While this might be so, neither author alludes to the possibility that these two dear friends slept together not only out of affection but simply for warmth – something that has been routinely done in many places throughout history, down to the modern era.” (O’Neill, p. 91)

Note that Cherici (and Ellis, following him) have taken a variation on the story – the standard tale seems to be saying that Darlughdacha was in love with a man, not with Brigid.

Others assert that this tale may have less to do with the Church than with pagan folklore:

“Although there may have been a historical woman of this name [Darlughdacha] who was the companion of a Christian abbess in Kildare, scholars argue that it is more likely that Darlughdacha was an otherwise lost Celtic goddess translated into a Christian nun.”

– found in Patricia Monaghan’s “Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore”, and cited there as having come from Mary Condren’s “Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion, and Power in Ancient Ireland” (p 71).

In other words, Darlughdacha – whose very name attests to pagan sources – was likely a Celtic goddess: that is to say, the tale of Brigit and Darlughdacha may come from ancient Celtic pagan mythology, and so your assertion doesn’t demonstrate that the Church is holding up a lesbian affair as normative (even in ancient Ireland).

 

[Ismael]

I’m talking with someone online who makes this claim and says that the Church got rid of the evidence. She also claims that the Church allowed gay marriage for the first 500 years. Where is this coming from?

That’s kind of convenient to say.

Since there is no evidence that there was ever any evidece, how can she prove her statement.’

Also the Church never allowed ‘gay marriage’… as far as I know it was not even allowed in Pagan Rome…

Artemisia

Ellis, Peter Berrisford. Celtic Women. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992. Pg 149. Ellis, who is working off of one of the earliest versions of The Life of St. Brigid wrote “We seem to be left in little doubt that Brigid had a lesbian relationship with another member of her community. She certainly shared her bed at Kildare with Darlughdacha, whose name means ‘daughter of the sun god Lugh’.”

Sorry, but it was not a joke; however, it should be noted that, technically, St. Brigid of Kildare was not a Roman Catholic Saint until the Irish Church was absorbed by the Roman Church during the Synod at Whitby, and that St. Brigid is no longer actually a Roman Catholic saint, having been removed in the 1960’s. She remains an Anglican saint, though.

There are a lot of books that claim two people were gay because they had a close relationship with someone of the same sex… or maybe they find some phrase that they take as an allusion. But that’s just misinterpretation of facts if not lies.

 

[aux1]

And her being a lesbian is a problem because…?