Féile Bríde 2025

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.

Féile Bríde 2019

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’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 2017

Drawing by Audrey Walsh

Among the issues to be explored at this year’s conference will be forced migration – the inevitable consequence of war and climate change.

Speakers will include distinguished peace activist and author Kathy Kelly and Scottish writer and campaigner Alastair McIntosh.  Find out more in our brochure.

To book tickets online go here or download the booking form and send to Afri by post.

To see who’s going on facebook go here.  

Reflections from Féile Bríde 2015

From left to right: Bruce Kent, Emanuela Russo, Joe Murray, Salome Mbugua and Colin Archer.  Photo: Pauhla McGrane
From left to right: Bruce Kent, Emanuela Russo, Joe Murray, Salome Mbugua and Colin Archer. Photo: Pauhla McGrane

Imagination and celebration were the order of the day at our 22nd annual Féile Bríde gathering in Kildare. ‘Occupy the imagination’ was the theme and the new Solas Bhríde a cause for celebration – built with the utmost attention to detail, as explained by Rita Minehan, in the teeth of the recession – a prizewinning example of a sustainable building in the heart of the Curragh. Warmth and welcome is added in abundance by Mary, Phil, Rita and members of Cairde Bríde who continue the tradition of hospitality for which Brigid was renowned.

Bruce Kent and Colin Archer, who have devoted most of their lives to promoting peace and – daringly – to the abolition of war, gave dynamic and thought provoking presentations on the extent to which ‘the world is over armed and peace is underfunded’. Bruce, who is in his 8th decade is an inspiration, with his indomitable spirit, his great sense of humour and his constant commitment to the cause of peace.


Film of Féile Bríde by RoJ

The essence of Bruce’s presentation was that ‘unless war is eliminated, the human race will be’ and so he has founded the Movement for the Abolition of War. This may seem like a far-fetched idea but so did the elimination of the slave trade when small groups of Abolitionists met in various parts of the world in the 17th century. (Of course we now have a new slave trade in the form of human trafficking but – unlike the slave trade – it is generally  regarded as the odious crime that it is).

Emanuela Russo spoke about the urgent need to wrest control of food production from the hands of profit-driven, environmentally destructive corporations and to establish food sovereignty, defined as “the right of people to grow and consume food that is socially, culturally, ecologically and economically appropriate to local conditions.” She went on to say: “the current global food system creates hunger and obesity at the same time. There are 900 million hungry people in the world and almost the same amount of obese people. One of the reasons why this is happening is that all around the world, more and more food systems are controlled by big corporations and agribusinesses with the support of national governments and international institutions (such as IMF and WB, WTO), these food systems regard food as a commodity and their main goal is not to feed the people but to make profit.” Continue reading “Reflections from Féile Bríde 2015”

Date for your Diary – Féile Bríde 2015

Afri - Feile Bride 2015
Féile Bríde 2015 will take place on Saturday 7th February in the Solas Bhríde Centre in Kildare town. The title of this year’s Féile Bríde is “Occupy the Imagination”.

‘Another world is possible’ – A simple and confident expression of an ability to step outside the existing paradigm and imagine an alternative! This ability to imagine, to voice the imagined, and to take action to manifest it, is a wonderful gift and holds the potential to a life well spent; a seed full of potential for change. Whether it be in the small fields of power within which we operate on a day-to-day basis or whether the net of imagination is cast farther to embrace other fields and other people, the role of the imagination in creating change is a vital one.

Speakers at this year’s Féile Bríde include those who similarly inhabit their dreams and make them visible. Bruce Kent, a name synonymous with peace-making and founder of an organisation that challenges the military mindset of countless generations, the Movement for the Abolition of War; Colin Archer of the International Peace Bureau, another life-long peace activist who similarly and consistently presents the kind of world that would be possible if we stopped sacrificing life in its many forms to the god of war and chose instead to put our focus and energy into the protection of life; Emanuela Russo, member of the Via Campesina and founding member of Food Sovereignty Ireland, by word and example occupies the imagined world where food production is in the hands of the people in respectful alliance with Mother Earth; And Salome Mbugua, working to bring about the world she dreams of in common with Brigid where justice, peace and human rights are upheld and hospitality is a belief in practice.

We invite you to join with us; to bring along your dreams and to add your voices to the dreamers’ discourse. Together, let’s ‘occupy the Imagination’ and discover what great changes we can help bring into being. Continue reading “Date for your Diary – Féile Bríde 2015”

Feile Bride 2012: Fire and Food

Saturday 4th February, Derby House Hotel, Kildare Town

This year’s Féile Bríde is a celebration of fire and food. There will be contributions from Mayra Gomez from Bolivia, who has worked around the world on peace and justice issues, and from Roisin O’Brien from Be The Change.

The programme also includes a short theatre piece, musical contributions from a Bolivian musician, some planting, workshops, and the lighting of the Brigid Flame!

Mayra Gomez will light the flame at the new Solas Bhride Centre site at 1pm and registration will follow at 1.30pm at the Derby House Hotel.

You can book on by downloading our brochure: Feile Bride Brochure 2012.