St. Brigid of Ireland and Her Lake of Beer

St. Brigid of Ireland (c. 451-c. 525) is the fourth saint featured in our Apron Series. In this artwork, St. Brigid holds an oversized glass beer mug or stein on the rocky shore of her imaginary lake of beer; in another, she appears holding an oversized glass beer mug or stein next to a barrel of beer against a green background patterned with a sprig of bog myrtle (Myrica gale). + A 6th-century Gaelic nun, St. Brigid founded the famous double monastery at Kildare (the “church of the oak") as well as several other Irish nunneries. She was a well-known miracle worker for the poor and is especially associated with beer. + Beer was an important staple of the medieval diet, not just a recreational drink. Safer to drink than the local, often polluted water, beer was considered a nutrient, earning a reputation as ‘liquid bread.’ In St. Brigid’s day, beer was a gruit, an herbal brew made from unmalted barley (Hordeum vulgare) and flavored with bog myrtle (Myrica gale) or meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria), not hops (Humulus lupulus). Hops were not used in Irish beer-making until the 16th century due to limited regional availability. + According to tradition, St. Brigid once turned ordinary bathwater into beer to provide for the patients of a leper colony when their supply ran dry. Similarly, another time, she turned bathwater into beer to fete the leper colony’s visiting clerics. Finally, one year, late in Holy Week, she miraculously furnished beer from Maundy Thursday until Easter Sunday to some 18 local churches from a single bottomless barrel. + So important was beer to her, St. Brigid wished even the saints in heaven and God Himself could enjoy its pleasures, allegedly authoring a poem to that effect that is quoted in part on most items here. + Feast: February 1 (St. Brigid’s Day coincides with Imbolc, a traditional Gaelic seasonal festival with Celtic origins, marking the first day of spring in Ireland. Since 2023, St. Brigid’s Day has been celebrated as a national public holiday in her honor.)