Brigid of Kildare presents one of the clearest cases in Christian hagiography of a saint who may stand atop an older deity. The historical abbess, founder, around 500, of the double monastery at Kildare that became one of Ireland's great religious centres, bears the name, attributes, and even the sacred fire of the pre-Christian Celtic goddess Brigid, patroness of poetry, healing, and smithcraft. At Kildare a perpetual flame was tended by her nuns and kept burning, according to medieval accounts, into the twelfth century, an image hard to separate from earlier fire-cult.
Scholars divide on whether the saint is a Christianized goddess, a real woman around whom the goddess's attributes clustered, or both at once; the sources are legendary and late. What is not in doubt is her standing. With Patrick and Columba she is one of the three patrons of Ireland, her feast on 1 February coincides with the old festival of Imbolc, and her cross of woven rushes remains among the most recognizable emblems of Irish Christianity.