St.Brigid’s Day - Ciarán Ó Maonaigh (fiddle) and Caitlín Nic Gabhann (concertina + dance)

This is a slip-jig I composed for St.Brigid’s Day 2022. It was a commission from the Irish Traditional Music Archives and the Dept of Foreign Affairs. I choreographed a percussive dance to the tune, in old-style Irish step dancing style. Read the story behind the composition below. Performed here with Ciarán Ó Maonaigh on fiddle at the Imbolc festival in Culturlann Uí Chanain, in Derry on 31st January 2022, the eve of the feast of St.Brigid.

The name Brigid or Bríd is ‘all around us’ in Irish life. Both my grandmothers were Brigid and Biddy and my own name is Caitlín-Bríd. My grandmother came from St Brigid’s Well, at Liscannor in Co. Clare and my first dancing lessons were at Kilbride hall in Co. Meath.

There is a tune and dance called ‘St Patrick’s Day’ that is known all over the world, so for St. Brigid’s Day this year, I thought it was time she got a tune and a dance of her own.

When trying to decide on what type of tune to compose for St.Brigid’s Day, I settled on a slip-jig for a couple of reasons. It’s traditionally a feminine dance and I also felt that the slip-jig suited the feast of St Brigid - the first day of spring.

Legend has it that Brigid asked the King of Leinster for some land in Kildare so that she could build a monastery. When he declined, she didn’t give up. She later returned and asked him if he’d give her the land that her cloak would cover. He laughed and said he would! So four of her sisters took a corner each of the cloak and walked in opposite directions - north, south, east and west. As they walked the cloak spread and grew and stretched across many acres. And this is where she built her monastery, one of the first in Ireland.

The tune I wrote has four parts, representing the St Brigid’s Cross, and also the four corners of her cloak stretching out so far and wide. The dance is a percussive slip-jig, which is unusual, as the slip-jig is usually a light-shoe dance, but I wanted it to represent Brigid’s strength and the ground she broke in her time.

I called the tune and the dance 'St Brigid's Day'"