IMBOLC is not simply a date, it is a threshold. It speaks of ewes heavy with milk, of seeds held patiently in the dark, of life preparing to rise again. This knowledge did not come from books alone, but from generations who listened to the land and learned its language.
In Ireland, the seasons were never abstract. They were lived, honoured, and woven into daily survival. That inheritance still lives in us, whether we realise it or not.
At the heart of Imbolc stands Brigid, warrior, poet, healer, fire-keeper, later transformed into a saint, yet never fully stripped of her power. She is the bridge between the old world and the new, between pagan flame and Christian candle. Brigid reminds us that Irish spirituality has always been layered, adaptive, and resilient. She carries the strength of a warrior and the compassion of a saint, embodying the duality that runs through Irish history itself: resistance and mercy, struggle and grace.
In West Belfast, this resonance feels especially close to the bone. Ours is a place shaped by endurance, by community, by memory that refuses to fade. To mark Imbolc here is to feel the ground beneath us humming with stories, stories of survival, of defiance, of faith carried through hardship. The land remembers, and so do we.
With the resurgence of our native language and a renewed pride in all things Gaelic, Imbolc awakens something deep within me, a sense of cultural identity and belonging that cannot be learned second-hand. When we speak Irish, sing the old songs, or mark the ancient festivals, we are not performing nostalgia, we are continuing a living tradition. We are reclaiming ways of seeing the world that colonialism tried, and failed, to erase.
Ireland is often called the Land of Saints and Scholars, but it is also the land of myths, Gaels and martyrs. These identities are not separate strands, they are braided together, forming the story of who we are. Imbolc, with its quiet promise and ancient fire, gathers them all into a single moment of reflection and hope.
As the light slowly lengthens and Brigid’s flame is remembered once more, we are reminded that renewal is not sudden, it is patient, persistent, and rooted. Like the Irish spirit itself, it endures.
