A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Bridget, or Brigit
BRIDGET, or BRIGIT,
And by contraction, St. Bride, a saint of the Romish church, and the patroness of Ireland, lived in the end of the fifth century. She was born at Fochard, in Ulster, soon after Ireland was converted, and she took the veil in her youth from the hands of St. Mel, a nephew and disciple of St. Patrick, She built herself a cell under a large oak, thence called Kill-dare, or the cell of the oak, and being joined by several women, they formed themselves into a religious community, which branched out into several other nunneries throughout Ireland, all of which acknowledged her as their foundress. She is commemorated in the Roman martyrology on the first of February.