FREE september 2017 16 A fantastic night of live music, dancing, food, drink and merriment! Pig-on-a-spit, Wicklow Wolf beer, Live entertainment by Bunty & the Bristlehounds, DJ till 1.30am, Fantastic raffle! PLEASE SUBMIT ARTICLES TO [email protected] Powerscourt & Kilbride News Dear All, KILBRIDE NOTES The summer has flown by as usual and though Thank you to everyone who supported the “Strawberries & many people have been away on holiday etc Cream” event in the Rectory Marquee on the 9th July. This event there has been quite a bit of activity. Much of it was a great success. Many thanks to everyone who helped, those has centred around the parish marquee which is who donated raffle prizes and those who donated the strawberries erected at the start of summer each year in the and the cream. Rectory grounds. The marquee is used every Sunday for coffee after church in Powerscourt but is also the The next meeting of Kilbride Parish Select Vestry will be on 13th venue for a number of special events. September 2017. Kilbride Harvest Festival will be on Sunday, 2nd October at 10.00 am and the preacher will be Canon George On 9th July Kilbride Parish used it for a most enjoyable ‘strawberries Butler. Refreshments will follow in the Parish Room. The Church and cream’ fundraiser. The parish BBQ was held there on 15th will be decorated on Saturday 1st October at 10 am and fruit, July and a special reception following the baptism of Olive Mary vegetables and flowers would be gratefully received then. O’Connell was held in the marquee on Sunday 23rd July. On August 25th all the Glendalough diocesan clergy and spouses will Kilbride Parish Supper Dance will be held on Friday, 20th October meet for a BBQ at the Rectory prior to the beginning of a new in Greystones Rugby Club with supper at 9p.m. sharp. Tickets €25 busy season. On 9th July parishioners and friends enjoyed another will be available from Georgina Masterson on 087 6716745. Your great tour of Dargle Cottage Garden led by head gardener David support for this major fund-raising event in the church calendar Koning. Proceeds were in aid of the parish. Many thanks David. would be very welcome. On 14th August the distribution of cheques was made to the Congratulations to Eva Lennox on the occasion of her marriage to beneficiaries of this year’s joint parishes Golf Classic which was Andrew McAvinchey in June. We extend our deepest sympathy held on 30th April. €18,000 was divided equally between the two to the Lennox family on the death of Erna’s brother-in-law David parishes, Charabanc Housing Association & Enniskerry GAA Club. Amos and to the Ackland family on the recent death of Valerie. We trust that everyone has enjoyed the Summer break and send The Mothers’ Union will hold an outing to Nun’s Cross Flower best wishes to all the students who are starting in National School Festival on Saturday 2nd September. The Charabanc will leave or in Secondary School. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the Rectory at 12.00noon and members will enjoy lunch together those who are sick or who are undergoing Hospital treatment at in the Chester Beatty Restaurant before attending the flower this time. festival. Buggy & toddler Church will meet again on Sunday 17th September at 10.00am in the School Hall. It will be led this year by Graeme & Julia Bird and will meet every month on the 3rd Sunday. Sunday School will be reformed this year led by Beth Stack & Edwina Allman. It will meet on the 1st & 3rd Sundays of each month at 11.30am. This is the same start time as the main church service in Powerscourt and the children will join the service at The Peace. Sunday School begins on 17th September. The Shed Gang, parish youth group will meet again every second Wednesday from 6th September at 7.30pm in the Parish Shed at the Rectory. They will enjoy a farm visit to Ronnie Sutton’s farm on Saturday 9th September and will lend a hand at the Enniskerry Field Day on Sunday 10th. Powerscourt National School has seen a number of changes over the summer months. Mrs Anna Ovington, the Principal will continue on career break next year and our Deputy Principal, Ms Ruth Deane, who has been acting Principal for the last 2 ½ years is leaving at the end of the summer to take up a new post in Shillelagh. We congratulate her on her recent engagement to Adam and wish her well as she prepares for her marriage next year. Two new staff now join the school: Ms Jane Honner is the new Permanent Mainstream Teacher, while Sean O’Connor Levingston becomes our new Shared Learning Support Teacher for next year. We welcome Paul Coster as the School Caretaker, who has been doing a magnificent job over the summer months. I am delighted to hear of the appointment of Fr Bernard Kennedy as new resident priest in Enniskerry. We extend a very warm welcome to him and look forward to his arrival during the month. Ricky Powerscourt & Kilbride News Brook House & St Brigid’s Journey protection and to the popular blessing, “Brat Bride Ort” (The cloak (Andrew Furlong, a pupil from 1956 to 1961 at Brook House of Brigid upon you) which used to be a popular blessing used Preparatory School, is indebted to his second cousin Dr Nicola throughout Ireland. Gordon Bowe and others for assistance with this article). There are many stained glass The story of St Brigid’s life, one of the wonder-working saints of windows portraying St Brigid. Noël Ireland, along with Saints Patrick and Columcille, dates back to Browne, T.D. (a Minister of Health the fifth century. St. Brigid is referred to in The Book of Lismore, in 1948) commissioned Stanley an Irish vellum manuscript compiled in early 15th century Lismore Tomlin of the Irish Stained Glass in Co. Waterford, originally called the Leabhar Mhic Cárthaigh Company in Dublin to design and Riabhaigh (The Book of Mac Cárthaigh Riabhach), which refers make a stained glass window of to the lives of Irish saints, notably, St Brigid, St Patrick, and St St Brigid for the living room in Columcille. his home, St Brigid’s, Lovers Leap Lane, Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co The most accessible source for 20th century artists was Whitley Wicklow. The next owners, Mr and Stokes’ edited translation, Lives of Saints, from the Book of Mrs Arthur Killingley, took the St Lismore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890). There was also a pagan Brigid window out and donated it Celtic goddess of the same name. Historians are still undecided to Peter Ross for the new school whether St Brigid was a historical or a legendary figure. Many of Brook House Preparatory School Chapel chapel being built at Ashton Park, the stories told about her are similar to those recounted about Monkstown, Co Dublin which was dedicated by Archbishop Brigid, the Celtic goddess. According to tradition, she was born George Simms in 1960. in 451 or 452 of princely ancestors at Faughart, near Dundalk, County Louth, and died on 1 February, 525. Refusing many good This chapel was in the hay offers of marriage, she became a nun and received the veil from loft above the stables in the St. Macaille. With seven other virgins she settled for a time at the coach-yard and initially had foot of Croghan Hill, but removed thence to Druin Criadh, on the been used as a playroom. plains of Magh Life, where under a large oak tree she erected her The Ashton Park site was subsequently famous Convent of Cill-Dara, that is, “the church sold in 1973 and the school of the oak” (now Kildare), in the present county of that name re-opened in Killarney around 480 A.D. on the site of an older pagan shrine to the Celtic Wood, Bray, Co Wicklow. goddess Brigid. St. Brigid’s small oratory at Cill-Dara became a Brook House Preparatory School Chapel The St Brigid window was centre of religion and learning, and developed into a cathedral stored in the attic of the main house as city. She founded two monastic institutions, one for men, and the no chapel was built. Brook House School other for women, and is credited with first organizing communal closed in 1990 and the property was consecrated religious life for women in Ireland. sold. In 1991 it merged with Castle Park Preparatory School, Dalkey, Co Dublin. For centuries, the Abbess of Kildare was regarded as superioress The St Brigid window was donated to general of the convents in Ireland. Not alone was St. Brigid a the nearby church, St Brigid’s Church, patroness of students, but she also founded a school of art, Kilbride, which the pupils had attended. including metal work and illumination, and was affectionately It was placed in a partition wall which called the “Queen of the South: the Mary of the Gael” by a writer divides the back of the church from the in the Leabhar Breac. After her death, she was interred on the main body to form a meeting room. The right of the high altar of Kildare Cathedral, where her shrine window was dedicated by Archbishop became an object of veneration for pilgrims. Her relics were Donald Caird in 1993. Noël Browne’s taken to Downpatrick c. 878 to escape Viking raids, and interred two daughters, Ruth and Susan, have in the tomb of St. Patrick and St. Columba.