Brigid Festival Vancouver 2023 is now over
but let's continue celebrating the creativity of women
Four dynamic Irish businesswomen joined a discussion panel at the Consulate General of Ireland on February 2, 2023.
It was a full house at the Consulate General of Ireland on February 2, 2023 for the Irish Women in Business panel discussion.
Deirdre Keohane leading the Brigid cross-making workshop in 2020
Four dynamic Irish businesswomen joined a discussion panel at the Consulate General of Ireland on February 2, 2023.
Brigid Festival Vancouver celebrates the healing, light, and creativity of Irish women and women across the world with a mix of in-person and virtual gatherings. This year our inclusive theme was: 'There's Room for Everyone Under Brigid's Cloak'.
Brigid Festival Vancouver is a volunteer-led event and admission to all events is free. Donations to the Irish Benevolent Society of BC are appreciated. Learn more here.
Despite Brigid’s origins in mythology and religion, this festival is non-religious and everyone is welcome. Registration is required.
Traditionally, Brigid/St. Brigid's Day heralds the coming of Spring. She is patroness of many things, including poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, livestock and dairy production. The saint shares her name with a Celtic goddess. Brigid's feast day is February 1, which was originally a pre-Christian festival called Imbolc.
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Candlelight Procession to Pause for Peace
A candlelight procession along with a 'Pause for Peace' was held at the event entitled 'There's Room for Everyone Under Brigid's Cloak' during Brigid Festival Vancouver 2023.
This minute of silence for global peace was inspired by the Brigidine Sisters of Kildare who presented online at Brigid Festival Vancouver on February 1.
The sisters spoke about the Pause for Peace movement, a new initiative recently launched jointly by Solas Bhride & Into Kildare. This movement reflects the spiritual underpinning of the new St. Brigid's Day national bank holiday in Ireland and is consonant with the values of peace Brigid stood for in her time.
Did you know that St. Brigid’s Day was particularly significant this year since it finally became the first national holiday in Ireland to honour a woman? Here in Vancouver, we presented our first in-person program since 2020. In the course of our four-day event, we featured a showcase event on Saturday, February 4, 2023, with music, storytelling, Brigid cross-weaving, performance readings, hospitality, and much more at Simon Fraser University Segal Building in downtown Vancouver.
See our photo gallery above to view some of our events presented from February 1 to February 4, 2023.
The Feminine Rood: A poem
for St. Brigid’s Day
Montreal poet Samara O’Gorman is an Irish-Canadian actress and writer and she has composed a special poem for Brigid Festival Vancouver entitled "The Feminine Rood" in honour of St. Brigid's Day. Her work will be shared at our presentation on February 1, 2023: Tending the Flame of St. Brigid.
Samara is also a scholar at The School of Irish Studies at Concordia University, where her studies focus on the Irish language, history, folklore, and poetry. In June 2021, Samara became a published author with her debut poetry collection, “What If the Sun Died”. After just one day, the book became a #1 best seller in the Mythological Storytelling category. O’Gorman is now recognized as a community poet and has been honored to speak & recite her poems at ceremonies and other public occasions.
Samara currently lives in Montreal, Canada where she can be found drinking copious amounts of tea, acting on set for a film, indulging herself in anything Tolkien-related, and she is perpetually in the midst of creating new works of art.