In reading a bit of Irish history, I found this:
So strong was the respect and reverence for this holy lady that she became the
patroness of parishes, towns, and counties, not only in Ireland, but all across Europe.
During the age of Chivalry, she was so revered as a model for women of every age,
that gentlemen, knights, and nobles began the custom of calling their sweethearts,
their Brides - a custom that has come down to this very day.

Dear tsuwm: does OED agree with this?

>does OED agree with this?

no; they trace it to 9th C. OE bryd and ultimately medieval L. bruta, in the sense ‘daughter-in-law’.

9th C. OE

It's also cognate with the German Braut.

St bridid certainly got some good press! she must have sent out an PR agent! St Bridid is based on the irish pagan ideal of womanhood.. and not one of your virginal roman woman, but on a lusty irish lass..

She got cleaned up in catholic sainthood, but in her old pagan irish ways she would have felt at home in the footnotes thread.. round heeled lass that she was.. her name in gaelic is related to the word for navel.. brigid was the earth mother, the source of new life.. (and we all know how that gets started!) she was also lady bountyful.. and caused the grain to grow.. and cattle to fatten.. i stumbled across some good sites about her.. i'll see if i can find them again.

Brigit is an example of the survival of an Early Celtic Goddess into Christian times, Brigit is the triple goddess of the Celtic Irish who appears as Brigantia in England, Bride in Scotland and Brigandu in Celtic France.
The Christians "converted" Brigid along with her people, calling her Brigit and claiming she was the human daughter of a Druid and that she was baptised by St. Patrick. The ancient Brigit had three manifistations; one as the goddess of smithcraft, one as ruler poetry and inspiration and one as the goddess of healing and medicine.
The three Brigits were different aspects of one divinity unified in the symbol of fire for Brigit was "Bright Arrow" or simply "Bright One."
Irish traditional tales say Bridgit invented many useful things including whistling and keening which is the mournful song of the bereaved Irish women.
Brigid is identified with the Earth itself and with soil fertility.
Bridgit was the greatest of all Celtic goddesses, a deity so intensly related to the feminine force that no man was allowed to pass beyond the hedge surrounding her sanctuary.
Have you guessed that Helen and I are both proud to be Irish women?

This excerpt from an article by Anita McSorley.
start quote:
" Women find a great advocate in (Saint) Patrick. Unlike his contemporary, St. Augustine, to whom actual women seemed more like personifications of the temptations of the flesh than persons, Patrick's Confession speaks of women as individuals. Cahill points out, for example, Patrick's account of "a blessed woman, Irish by birth, noble, extraordinarily beautiful—a true adult—whom I baptized."

Elsewhere, he lauds the strength and courage of Irish women: "But it is the women kept in slavery who suffer the most—and who keep their spirits up despite the menacing and terrorizing they must endure. The Lord gives grace to his many handmaids; and though they are forbidden to do so, they follow him with backbone." He is actually the first male Christian since Jesus, Cahill says, to speak well of women.

"The Fathers of the Church had the most horrible things to say—it's frightening to read what people like Augustine or John Chrysostom had to say about women. As remarkable as anything about Patrick is that in his writings there is never anything remotely like that."

In fact, there are clear instances of him saying warm and appreciative things about women. O'Donoughue adds, "It is clear that the man who wrote the Confession and "Coroticus" is deeply and sensitively open to women and womanhood....But he does not take refuge in either 'the pretentious asceticism, nor yet in that neurotic fear of and contempt for the feminine' that has entered so deeply into the attitudes and structures of the Christian Church....In this respect he is a complete man."
end quote

The entire article - maybe more than you want to know! - may be found at
http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Mar1997/feature1.asp

Wow, wow, wow,
So good,
He said it
Thrice!

They say that St Patrick arranged it so that the Irish will be spared Armageddon, ya know. I hope that applies ta teddies as well - otherwise Ted here is in big trouble. Me final Teddy Bears' Picnic could be a very messy affair indeed.

I hopes ye proud Irish women what wrote in above put a good word in fer me. Perhaps ye should check out the AWAD archives - ya might find a suitable one there.

GT

I wonder if it is significant that both St.Brigid and St. Patrick had been slaves. Quite possibly ir could have facilitated their acceptance of Christianity.

Bridey is also another nickname derived from Bridget, as in The Search for Bridey Murphy,
an account of a modern American woman's hypnotic retrogression into a past-life as an Irish peasant girl named Bridey Murphy. Facets of the the Irish girl's life that the woman had no means or cause for knowing were researched and validated, making this a groundbreaking case in reincarnation circles, as well as a riveting and well-written read.