Street Wise – Brideswell

This series of articles for the Westmeath Independent is run in conjunction with the Street Wise Athlone series on Athlone Community Radio which is broadcast on Wednesdays during Athlone Today at 2.30pm and repeated on Thursday mornings at 10am on The Brekkie Show.

Athlone Miscellany with Gearoid O'Brien

Brideswell is a townland and village in the civil parish of Cam, in the barony of Athlone, County Roscommon, the Irish name is Tobar Bride. It is bordered by the following townslands: Cam, Cornageeha, Eskerbaun, Knocanool, Pollalaher and Ratawragh.

According to ‘The Diocese of Elphin: people, places and pilgrimage’ edited by Fr Francis Beirne “it is generally claimed that St. Brigid of Kildare also visited this territory, founding convents and cells there and blessing wells”. However, he goes on to say that this claim can “be neither substantiated nor disproved.” This is largely due to the hagiography of St Brigid and indeed of many of our Irish saints where stories were fabricated to enhance the reputation of the saints. We know that several churches in South Roscommon belonged to the ‘paruchia’ of St Brigid and there is a long and documented tradition concerning division of the baptismal offerings in Hy-Many where one third went to Brigid (or her Coarb), one third to Clonown and one third to Drum.

St Brigid

Next year a long overdue public holiday to honour St Brigid (or Bridget) will be initiated in Ireland, to honour Brigid who is one of the three patron saints of Ireland along with Patrick and Colmcille, but who was St Brigid? The late Noel Kissane, has written the definitive book ‘Saint Brigid of Kildare: Life, Legend and Cult’, which was published by The Four Courts Press. In the introduction he explains “This book does not provide a ‘Life of Saint Brigid’, That is not possible as there is not nearly enough evidence from which to construct such a work…” It has been recorded that there were no fewer than thirteen Irish saints of that name. Some scholars still doubt that St Brigid ever existed as a real person, instead they believe that she was the personification of the pagan goddess Brigid who was venerated in Ireland in the period before the introduction of Christianity. Noel Kissane, however, concludes that Saint Brigid of Kildare did exist “and probably lived in the general period c.450-550.” To aid his research Dr Kissane had no fewer than seven early medieval “lives of St Brigid” all written in Latin at his disposal but they were short on biographical facts and laden with accounts of her great works and miracles.

It seems plausible that the devotion to Brigid and the holy well of Brideswell may date from the 6th C. There is a fascinating account of Brideswell contained in Isaac Weld’s ‘Statistical Survey of the County of Roscommon’ which was published in 1832 and which is freely available to read on-line. Rev Weld was both a medical doctor and a clergyman and served in St Peter’s Church of Ireland in Athlone.

Pope Urban VI granted Brideswell a daily plenary indulgence for thirty years in 1380. In 1670 the Bishops of Ireland successfully petitioned Rome to have the indulgence restored

“Brideswell is a small village scattered along the borders of a level green; on the farthest side of which stands an old building with the well from which it takes its name. Heretofore it used to be remarkable for pilgrimages to the holy waters, and the annual pattern or festival of the saint patroness, was the most frequented one at this side of the county, and only rivalled by the holy-well of Saint Ronan, in the north, near the mountains of Lough Allen.

Tents and booths, to the utmost extent which the village green could accommodate, were erected for carousel, and during several days and nights together, drinking and dancing went on merrily, the devotees being alike regardless of the glare of the day or the shades of the night. The idleness, dissipation, and profligacy, occasioned by these meetings, and the baneful effects which followed as a necessary consequence, and were felt through an extended district, at last induced the Roman Catholic clergy; jealous more especially of the character and moral conduct of their flocks, as contrasted with the demeanour inculcated in the lessons of the new Protestant teachers, to forbid altogether their assemblages on the saint’s day; and their mandates had been implicitly obeyed during the two years which preceded my visit. Nothing can more decidedly show the great influence of the priesthood, than the ready compliance of the people with their orders to abandon festivities, which during a long series of years, had been hailed both by the old and young as a source of annual delight and enjoyment. Neither was the mere loss of pleasure the only one to be taken into account, for the owners of the tents and booths made considerable; by opening their houses, also, the inhabitants of the village very commonly received more money than sufficed to discharge the annual rent. I heard several persons on the spot lament the poverty to which they had been reduced by the change; yet there did not appear to be the most remote disposition to revive the festival, in opposition to the injunctions which had been promulgated from the altars”.

The Modern Pattern

The story of the modern pattern is told in a booklet published by the Brideswell Pattern Committee in 2007 with valuable historical material contributed by William Gacquin who has done so much for the recording of the history of the parishes of Kiltoom and Cam.

Sometime after Weld’s time the pattern was obviously restored. There is a reference in The Westmeath Independent of August 4, 190,0 to the recent Pattern of Brideswell which was attended by a very large number of people from Athlone and district.

In September 1906 the Quarter Sessions in Athlone quashed a conviction in an appeal by Mrs Ellen Hamrock, Brideswell, for an alleged breach of the licensing laws on “the last Pattern Day in Brideswell.” I found several references to the Pattern Day right up to the 1930s. In The Westmeath Independent of 31 July 1937, it stated “The annual pattern at Brideswell, is an event of much interest in South Roscommon. The pattern is now a pattern in name only as it has lost all its religious significance. Except in the minds of the old folk the day is now associated with mirth and jollification. Younger folk look forward to it as a day’s sport, followed by a night of dancing in some neighbouring dance hall. However, it is only a Mrs Grundy who would wish to deprive the young people of their legitimate pleasure but at the same time the historical and religious aspect of the day should not be entirely lost sight of”. The paper went on to criticise the state of the ‘rocky road’ to Brideswell from Athlone. A similar account of the Pattern Day was published in 1939; in the 1940s and 50s it seems that Pattern Day was usually marked by a football match. For example, in 1944 it was a match between St. Brigid’s and Taughmaconnell and in 1953 it was a clash between St Brigid’s and St Kieran’s.

A visit by the members of An Realt in Athlone, under the guidance of Fr O’Beirne CC, who went to Brideswell, albeit not on the traditional Pattern Day in 1956, and who took part in the pattern prayers under the guidance of Fr Diarmuid O Laoghaire S.J., was the catalyst for the modern revival of the Pattern of Brideswell by Fr Brendan Fitzmaurice the curate in Curraghboy in 1957. By October 1956 The Westmeath Independent reported on the intention to erect a statue of Brigid in Brideswell by an energetic local committee headed by Fr Fitmaurice and Mr Pat Sheehy N.T.

Next article: Kiltoom

Read the previous articles in the series, starting here