Féile Bríde 2025

Afri

Brigid’s Light: Illuminating Paths of Justice and Solidarity

We are delighted to welcome you to Féile Bríde 2025. Organised in partnership with the Brigidines and Cairde Bríde in the beautiful Solas Bhríde Centre, this gathering is dedicated to exploring and encouraging action on the pressing issues of our time. The event brings together diverse speakers, wonderful musicians, and active community members for a day filled with information and inspiration, punctuated by music and poetry, light lunch, tree planting, and conversation.

The theme, “Brigid’s Light: Illuminating Paths of Justice and Solidarity,” calls on us to reflect deeply on our world’s challenges and honour the spirit of Brigid as a woman who cared deeply for the earth, justice, equality, and peace. The story of Brigid offers a profound lens through which we can understand our present struggles, having offered her father’s most prized possession, a bejewelled sword, to a poor and sick man so he could exchange it for food. Thus, Brigid turned a sword into a ploughshare and transformed a tool of war into nourishment and care. Today, this act of resistance is not only a symbol of hope but a powerful call to confront militarism and the destructive forces that perpetuate genocide, injustice and environmental ruin.

Our incredible contributors will illuminate these challenges and help us understand how to forge pathways of peace and justice. Brigid’s legacy is a stark reminder that we are the ancestors of the future, called to challenge injustice now so future generations may be free. At this moment of collective urgency, we remember that Brigid’s act was not just defiance but one steeped deeply in love and solidarity, as our event is, too.

Register on Eventbrite here

Programme

10:15 Registration
10:50 Opening Music by Emer Lynam and Procession of the Flame of Peace
10:55 Welcome
11:10 Brigid’s Call to Action Today: Defying Militarism and Protecting The Triple Lock – Niamh Ní Briain
11:50 Music – Dee Armstrong, performing songs from her upcoming solo album, Deichtine’s Daughter, accompanied by Lughaidh Armstrong and Gráinne Horan
12:10 Solar Lights and the Work of Development Pamoja – James Hennessy
12:50 Music – Dee Armstrong, accompanied by Lughaidh Armstrong and Gráinne Horan
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Tree Planting
14:15 Pocket Forests: Bringing Biodiversity to Your Doorstep – Catherine Cleary
14:50 Music – Kate Moore
15:00 Solidarity is Key – Raghad Abu Shammala
15:30 Closing Session – Seeds of Hope
16:20 Music – The Resistance Choir

The brochure is available for download here.

Reflections from Féile Bríde 2020

Afri
Speakers from the day: Shivam O’Brien, Micheal Long, Mary Reynolds, Clare O’Grady Walshe, Nelly McLaughlin.
©Photo by Derek Speirs

Afri’s Feile Bride event for 2020 was entitled ‘Rekindling; Revitalising; Rewilding and Restoring’ and was set in the context of the need for urgent action on climate change. Over recent years, many people, of all ages, are getting actively involved in fighting for change. This was reflected at the conference, where we heard from a number of mature activists who have been around for some time but also from Ruby Jo, who set up “There is no planet B” as an 11 year old activist! This shows that we can all be involved in action to tackle climate change – as Greta Thunberg says ‘no-one is too small to make a difference’. This was the 28th year of tending the Brigid flame in Kildare, which as Rita Minehan explained, was lit at the first Afri Conference in 1993 and burns as a “beacon of hope, peace and justice.” It was noted, that one of the trademarks of those who attend Féile Bríde is a spirit of positivity and hope, and a determination, no matter what, to keep on working for a better world for all.

Continue reading “Reflections from Féile Bríde 2020” →

Féile Bríde 2019

Afri
Féile Bríde 2019

Féile Bríde 2019 will take place in Solas Bhríde on Saturday, February 9th with Registration at 9.50. The theme of this year’s Féile is Education, Action, Compassion, Hope.
Education, (including self-education) is an essential dimension of transformative action; and compassion in all we do has never been more necessary.  Our speakers this year embody all of these vital qualities. 
Richard Moore, whose living example of compassion is such that the Dalai Lama calls him his hero, will speak about ‘Education the Heart’ in the context of his extraordinary story. Caoimhe de Barra has devoted her energies to pursuing justice and human rights, as Michael Doorly has directed his to promoting global education and equity. Kay Mulhall personifies the spirit and aim of the Brigidines ‘to stand in solidarity with the oppressed and seek to build a more inclusive community.’ While Meghan Carmody represents a new generation of activists with passion and determination to see our world transformed.  
Such people and actions – as well as Laoise Kelly’s magical music – bring us hope, the vital antidote to cynicism and despair. A new year, a new spring and a renewed sense of purpose can see us decisively turn the tide in 2019.

Book online here  or download the brochure and the booking form and return by post to Afri, 8 Cabra Road, Dublin 7, D07 T1W2

Reflections from Féile Bríde 2018

Afri

 

Afri’s 2018 Féile Bríde took place on Saturday 3rd February in Solas Bhríde in Kildare town.  It was a rich and full day with contributions from Peadar Kirby about caring for our global village, Hanny Van Geel (Via Campesina), Rose Hogan (Trócaire) on ‘food for life’, John Maguire on ‘Peace Meal Change’ and wrongfully imprisoned Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle, as well as music and poetry.  You can get a flavour of the day in a short film made by RoJ.

Here is a report from Sr Patricia Mulhall, who attended the conference:

This is the twenty-sixth year of another well-attended Afri conference hosted at Solas Bhríde Centre, Kildare.  As visiting speaker, Peadar Kirby named it, the Ard fheis of Afri. Some 200 people attended in the beautiful setting of the Centre & Hermitages, a centre of hospitality, brightness radiating a warm welcome. Brigidines – Mary, Phil and Rita – organise and manage the Centre with Cairde Bhríde, faithful friends and staff.

 ‘Light out of Darkness’ was a fitting theme for a day punctuated by music and message of hope. Speakers with academic presentations and personal stories enlightened and entertained the participants. The day began with a presentation from Peadar Kirby, entitled ‘Caring for our Global village.’ Peadar is Professor Emeritus of International Politics and Public Policy in the University of Limerick, Ireland. He is associated with the eco-village of Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary, a 67-acre site with 50 acres of land for allotments, farming and woodland as well as 50 low- energy homes. Continue reading “Reflections from Féile Bríde 2018” →

Date for your diary – Féile Bríde 2018

Afri

Féile Bríde 2018: Light out of Darkness

Saturday 3rd February 2018

Solas Bhríde, Kildare Town

Registration at 10.20am

Book online here

or download a booking form and return by post

“Life has given me many challenges, which I choose to take as opportunities to learn and grow. This is my choice. I learned this on death row. I chose life, health, forgiveness, and love. That choice saved me from bitterness and hatred that would have destroyed me from within. I have dedicated myself to an end to violence – in all its forms. This is the way I honour the lives that were sacrificed along the way. This is the way I give back to the universe. Love is the answer. Fear is the enemy. We must choose the world we want and work towards making it happen every day in our own lives.”

These are the inspiring words of death row survivor, Sunny Jacobs, whose life reads like a Shakespearean tragedy, with injustice heaped upon further injustice, creating circumstances that would have crushed many people.  An innocent woman wrongfully convicted of murder, her husband was executed, she lost other family members and she spent many years awaiting her own execution.  But Sunny came shining through it all with dignity, strength, courage, compassion and hope. She is the perfectly encapsulation of this year’s Féile Bríde’s theme:  ‘light out of darkness’.

Sunny and Peter Pringle, the last person to have been on death row in Ireland, have devoted themselves to promoting healing, peace and reconciliation.  Together they have established The Sunny Centre – a sanctuary for others who suffer injustice, especially people who are wrongly convicted of crimes they did not commit and have spent time under sentence of death.  We will hear their extraordinary stories at Féile Bríde this year.

Other speakers include the distinguished academic and activist Peadar Kirby, who plays a leading role in the Cloughjordan Eco-Village; UCC Professor Emeritus and life-long peace activist John Maguire; Hanny Van Geel of La Via Campesina, which promotes the rights of peasant communities around the world, and who describes herself as ‘rooted in farming’; and Rose Hogan who has a life-long commitment to agro-ecology and sustainable agriculture.

In a world marred by war and the woeful destruction of our exquisite planet, Féile Bríde is but one example of the many, many people and groups throughout our world who hope for and work towards a better future, a more just world and for the light to overcome the darkness. 

And as the Spring birdsong heralds the end of another winter, we will also have music because, as Hans Christian Anderson said, “where words fail, music speaks”. 

Clár

10.20am          Registration

10.45am          Fáilte, Solas agus Ceol: welcome, light & music

11.00pm          Caring for our Global Village – Peadar Kirby

12.00pm          Food for Life – Hanny Van Geel & Rose Hogan               

1.00pm            Lunch and tree planting

2.00pm            Peace Meal Change– John Maguire

2.50pm            Tea break

3.05pm            Music

3.15pm            Light out of Darkness

                                    Sunny’s story

                                    Peter’s story

                                    The Sunny Centre

4.45pm            Music

5pm                 Conclude

 

Féile Bríde 2018 brochure.

To book tickets online go here or download the booking form and return by post

To see who’s going on facebook go here.

Afri’s Féile Bríde conference is part of a week long events being held in Kildare organised by the Brigidine Sisters and Cairde Bríde.  For information about the other events that week visit the Solas Bhríde website or download their programme Feile Bride Programme.

Reflections from Féile Bríde 2017: Darkness to Light

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Speakers U.S. peace activist Kathy Kelly (second from right) and Scottish author and campaigner Alastair McIntosh (right) together with Afri Co-ordinator Joe Murray and Brigidine sister Rita Minehan at the 2017 Féile Bríde conference in Kildare on Saturday 4th February 2017. Photo: Dave Donnellan

When we look at the many problems confronting our world, we can sometimes think that things are worse than ever and that little progress has been made towards creating a more just and compassionate world.  But it is important that we keep in mind the progress made, as well as the challenges that continue to face us.

When we held our first Féile Bríde in 1988, apartheid was still in place in South Africa, the conflict in the North of Ireland was still raging with nightly reports of deaths and injuries and East Timor was under the jack boot of Indonesian occupation.   Continue reading “Reflections from Féile Bríde 2017: Darkness to Light” →