Handwoven St. Brigid’s Cross

I’d add a dedicated “About Aidan & Why We Make These Crosses” section. It gives trade buyers a genuine story they can also share with their own customers.

About Aidan & Why We Make These Crosses

For Aidan, making St. Brigid’s Crosses is something that goes back to childhood.

Growing up in Ireland, he would make crosses from rushes and share them with neighbours and hand them out to Mass-goers at his local church, which stood next to his family home. As a child, Aidan also served Mass in that same church, so the traditions surrounding St. Brigid’s Day were simply part of growing up.

His connection with Imbolc and the Irish land is just as personal. Aidan grew up on a farm, where this time of year meant helping his father during lambing season. It gave him a direct understanding of what Imbolc represented in rural Ireland – the beginning of spring, new life and a changing agricultural year. Growing up in a farming family also created a lasting appreciation for the land and how it provided for the family.

Today, as the owner of Gifts of Ireland, Aidan has brought that childhood tradition into the business. After an amazing response to our handmade St. Brigid’s Crosses from retail customers over the last couple of years, we were inspired to make them available to other retailers through our trade collection.

The tradition has grown in other ways too. Church groups in the USA have ordered Irish rushes from us to make their own crosses, while Aidan has held St. Brigid’s Cross-making workshops with local communities in Dublin around St. Brigid’s Day.

Aidan has a great interest in both Ireland’s Christian traditions and its older pagan culture and past. St. Brigid’s Day is particularly special because these different strands of Irish history have become intertwined in the way the day is understood and celebrated today.

Whether someone honours St. Brigid as a saint, connects with the older traditions of Brigid and Imbolc, or simply wants to celebrate an important part of Irish culture, there is a place for everyone in the tradition.

That is what we want these crosses to carry into shops and homes around the world – a handmade piece of Ireland, the story behind it, and a tradition that is still very much alive today.