By Sean Moriarty

After a two year hiatus due to the pandemic the Biddys were back with music, dance and in great form in Kilgobnet on Sunday evening.

The rural community near Beaufort is one of the few areas in Ireland still celebrating St Brigid’s Day in the traditional ways.

Dressing as the Biddies is one of the oldest and most colourful customs in Ireland, a blend of pagan and Christian pageantry, held on February 1 each year.

Next year the day will be marked nationally with a Bank Holiday for the first time but the rest of Ireland will have to look to the small mid-Kerry community to see how it is really done.

Not unlike the Wren Celebrations in West Kerry, celebrating the Biddy is all about tradition.

Locals dress up in uniform – the official colours of the Kilgobnet Biddy is red and green – and they visit local areas to dance at crossroads and play music.

Two local guardians, Mike Coffey and Kilgobnet National School Principal Maura O’Connor, ensure the correct protocols are followed.

Miss O’Connor passes these traditions to her pupils and staff. The school’s Board of Management identified the Biddy as a potential fundraiser and apart from the pandemic, the school has organised an event every year.

“It was fantastic,” teacher Mary Anne Leane told the Killarney Advertiser. “Local man Mike Coffey makes all the costumes and he knows the protocols. It is great to have the proper traditions – often things get diluted when you try to revive them. This year we could not go around from house to house as we usually would, but we were at Sweeney’s Cross which is a known location for crossroads dancing. We visited Kissane’s Shop too. The older people were able to see us there.”

She praised her school Principal Maura O’Connor who has done so much to keep the Biddy tradition alive in both the school and in the locality.