Saint Bridget was born about the year 453 at Fochard, in Ulster.
When about twenty years old she received the veil from Saint
Mel, the nephew and disciple of Saint Patrick. So many sought
the religious life under her direction that a convent, the first
in Ireland, was erected for her and she was made superior. From
this parent stem branched forth other convents in different
parts of Ireland, all which acknowledged her as their mother and
foundress. Several churches in England and Scotland are
dedicated to God under her name, and some also in Germany and in
France. After seventy years devoted to the practice of the most
sublime virtups, corporal infirmities admonished our saint that
the time of her dissolution was nigh. For half a century she had
irrevocably consecrated herself to God, and during that period
great results had been attained. The day on which our abbess was
to quit this life, 1 February 523, having arrived, she received
the blessed body and blood of her Lord in the Blessed Eucharist,
and, as it