Kildare features in documentary on St Brigid on RTE tonight

As Ireland prepares to celebrate its first public holiday dedicated to a woman, Siobhán McSweeney goes in search of the real Brigid for a new documentary Finding Brigid on RTÉ One tonight at 10.15pm.

1500 years after Brigid’s death, Siobhán unravels the tangled threads of fact and folklore to reveal the truth about this elusive Goddess, Woman and Saint, and asks why, in an increasingly secular and diverse Ireland, Brigid's popularity appears to be on the rise?

Siobhán gathers a "mnásome", in a stone circle in Galway, with Herstory activist Melanie Lynch, and poet Laura Murphy, who candidly reveal their motivation behind the Herstory campaign and their mission to make St Brigid’s Day a national holiday. 

Joining this mnásome are sisters Mary Kennedy and Deirdre Ni Chinnéide, who grew up by St Brigid’s Well in Clondalkin and are co-authors of the book Journey to the Well.

Broadcaster Mary openly shares the influence she feels Brigid had on her, saying: "I did feel that by researching and by writing about Brigid, I got more of a sense of me as a woman, as an Irish woman, as a woman with Celtic roots and a confidence."

Siobhán then visits the sacred Brigid’s Well in Kildare with former president Mary McAleese.