Local Faces: Josephine Byrne

Anywhere you travel in the world, if you say you’re Irish, people say ‘Oh St Patrick!’ in an effort to find common ground with us, reports Ken Doyle.

St Patrick’s day on 17th of March is one of the most celebrated Christian feast days of the year. Americans in particular go nuts for it. They all wear green and dump colossal amounts of food colouring into their rivers to make them look like pea soup.

Now I’m not here to denigrate the achievements of the venerable St Patrick.

We’re all very grateful for the snakes thing. If it hadn’t been for him, we could be up to our armpits in anacondas and black mambas. Yes, natural historians claim that there never were snakes in Ireland and that St Patrick might as well have claimed to have driven all the lions and wallabies from our shores, but still.

Don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this.

You see, February 1st sees the feast day of an equally, some might say, even more deserving patron Saint of Ireland, St Brigid.

The lore surrounding St Brigid is utterly fascinating and I would recommend anyone to look into it further.

Alternatively you could speak to our Face of the Community this week, Josephine Byrne of Clondalkin.

Josephine is a true expert on our Patroness Saint, and as a distinguished woman of letters, a lot more besides.

The Echo was lucky enough to have a conversation with Josephine as St Brigid’s Day approached.

Described by her peers as a modern day embodiment of St Brigid herself, Josephine’s dedication to cultural life in her beloved Clondalkin is legendary.

“I suppose the first thing to tell you is I’m a very proud Clondalkin woman and I absolutely love the place. We have so much wonderful history and culture and I’m passionate about preserving and celebrating it,” she tells me.

Having been brought up in Clondalkin and now settled in Floraville in the village, Josephine’s has been fighting the good fight to keep Clondalkin in the headlines for the right reasons for many years.

As Secretary of Clondalkin History Society, and as a member of the lobby group “Rally Round the Tower,” Josephine played a huge part in the development of what is now the Round Tower Visitor Centre.

“We fought extremely hard to get the centre built and it was a very proud moment when it opened. Our plans were to establish the centre along with Corkagh Park and the Grand Canal Greenway as an attraction for visitors to Clondalkin, which is an ongoing project.”

As for the plans for St Brigid’s Day, Josephine tells me, “We have an annual festival now with all manner of events and activities. The festival culminates in a pilgrimage to St Brigid’s Well on Brideswell Lane off Boot Road.”

One piece of advice Josephine gave me to pass on was that, sacred though the waters may be, they’re not exactly fit for human consumption, so if you join the merry band of pilgrims, don’t drink the water!

It’s fair to say that Josephine has spent her life making Clondalkin a nicer place to live. Somehow she also found the time to work in Clondalkin Credit Union for over 25 years and raise a family.

She’s happily married to Tommy, an accomplished artist and they have two grown up kids, Cathal and Anne, not to mention two grandchildren, Amelia and Sophia.

If that weren’t enough, she’s also on the Executive Committee of the Federation of Local History Societies and has a hand in many other local projects.

“I owe so much to Clondalkin, my family have been here for generations and it’s a great source of pleasure for me to help keep our vibrant history alive. Between the Round Tower Visitor Centre and Áras Chrónáin, we have some great community resources and it’s an honour to work with those wonderful people.”

Getting back to the story of St Brigid, those of us of a certain vintage will remember making St Brigid’s crosses out of rushes in school, but how much do we actually know about her?

Prepare to be impressed. According to legend, St Brigid of Kildare, to give her her proper title, was born in the year 451, her father and guardian being a slave named Dubhtach.

Her father was tired of young Brigid giving away the family’s meagre possessions to the even less fortunate.

So it was that Dubhtach attempted to sell her to the king of Leinster and whilst negotiations were ongoing, Brigid gave her father’s bejewelled sword to a leper. The King, upon seeing this agreed to free Brigid to follow her faith.

She became a nun and decided to found a monastery in Kildare. She asked the King for the land to build it on and at first he scoffed at the notion.

Brigid then asked if she could just have the land that her cloak covered. Most amused, the king agreed to this request, whereupon Brigid placed her cloak on the ground where it grew and expanded covering square miles of land. The King, realising he was in trouble, agreed that Brigid could have all the land she wanted.

She also poked her own eye out when a man suggested that despite her taking holy orders, she was too beautiful and too valuable for attracting a dowry to remain unmarried to a man.

Also, St Brigid is the patron saint of poets, scholars, midwives, newborns, blacksmiths and many more besides.

Now for the best part of all, she could turn water into beer! Beer!

In those days, the brewing process meant that beer was often safer to drink than water so St Brigid ensured her people were refreshed at all times.