SAINTS OF ERIN

 March 16, 2021

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY

Saint Patrick's day is soon upon us, and we all claim Irish roots.  My DNA analysis by 23&Me says that I'm 63% British and Irish, but doesn't differentiate further.  Mary, bless her Irish heart, is 100%   Both of us are identified with the Irish counties our family stories claimed.

A few years back I painted three Irish saints framed in a triptych group.  Here are the Saints of  Erin, with an explanation of the complex symbolism that I incorporated.  You can click on the picture to see it larger.

 

 SAINTS OF ERIN

This triptych is a grouping of three individual acrylic paintings united in a triple tabernacle style frame that I designed and fabricated.  Each panel depicts a saint long venerated in Ireland.  There is a color and a metal theme in each panel, a cross or cross-surrogate identified with the saint, “attributes” (items associated with specific saints in iconographic practice) representative of each saint, a Celtic knot pattern that refers to the saint’s hagiographic tradition, and each saint’s name in Gaelic.

 

Brigid (Naomh Bhríde)

Reading the panels left to right, Saint Brigid is first.  While St Brigid of Kildare was not first historically, her tradition has come to incorporate much older pre-Christian lore of the Celtic goddess Brigid. Here Brigid’s color is red, associated with Brigid’s identification – both as a pagan goddess and Christian saint – with fire.  Her metal, in my symbolic use of metallic paint, is copper.  Copper, the red metal, represents the early Bronze Age Celtic era, and the ductility and malleability of the pagan/Christian Brigid tradition.  The flaming lamp is indicative of the association of the early goddess with light and wisdom (viz. Sophia in the Mediterranean pagan/Christian world), subsequently transferred to St Brigid, whose fire association is extended to the household fire, and protection from fire, here safely contained in a black iron vessel.  This lamp is supported by a cow, another symbol bridging the morphing Brigids.  St Brigid, raised in poverty, was fed by the milk of a white-eared red cow, and she fed the poor and others with milk miraculously multiplied in Christ-like manner.  Paralleling the miracle at Cana, she also transformed and multiplied bathwater to beer, and is associated with that beverage. She is the patron saint of brewers.  Brigid and her followers stretched her miraculously elastic cloak to envelope an area suitable for construction of an abbey when a noble would only grant her the land the cloak could cover. The cloak here covers an abbey.  Brigid’s plaited Celtic red hair is visible here from beneath her religious garment showing her independence and her origins in an earlier Celtic era.  The Cross of Saint Brigid has long been woven from reeds on St Brigid’s day, February 1.  The knot pattern at the bottom of the panel represents the flames of St Brigid.

 

Patrick (Naomh Pádraig)

 Saint Patrick is in the center panel and the center of Irish religious heritage.  His visage appears marble-like; Patrick has transformed into a national monument.  His color is, as expected, green.  I have chosen gold for his metal, symbolic of his introduction of Christianity as the representative of Rome, and the central position of Patrick as a symbol of Ireland.  Patrick wears the episcopal mitre and vestments, but his bishop’s crosier here is his ashwood staff which took root when he thrust into the ground at Aspatria.  Patrick chose the cross-like shamrock to represent the Trinity. His knot border comprises the serpents, symbolic of the Druids, banished by Patrick from the isle of Ireland.

 

 Brendan (Naomh Bréanainn)

 Saint Brendan of Clonfert occupies the final panel of the triptych, connecting the Old World Ireland of Brigid and Patrick with the New World with a new perspective. His color is the blue of the sea, and his metal, in my symbolism, the silver of the navigator’s night sky, He is a hearty adventurer, with sturdy features to match his sturdy deeds.  Brendan’s vessel crosses between the familiar coast of Europe to the more vaguely perceived coast of the Isle of the Blessed, Tír na nÓg, which was discovered by Brendan and his intrepid monk-explorers.  It is commonly associated with pre-Columbian discovery of America. Brendan’s cross, sold as a jewelry item to mariners, is derived from a swirl of dolphins, one of which bears his craft across the Atlantic.  I have fashioned a wave knot pattern for him.