“This day was called oimelc, imolg, or imbulc: the first from oimelc is given in Cormac’s Glossary where it is derived from a sheep, and melc or melg, milk : “for that is the time the milk di-melg, ewe-milk,’ sheep’s comes.” That oimelc is the first of February we know from Peter O’Connell’s Dictionary, where oimelc is identified with Feil Brighde (St. Brigit’s feast day), which has been, and is still, the Irish name for the first of February all through Ireland, the old Pagan name oimelc, being obsolete for centuries.“

P.W. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland

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Cover art is ‘Coming of Saint Brigid’ by John Duncan

January 31st – February 1st (astronomical date varies)

The word Imbolc or Imbolg is pronounced im-bolg. It’s also called Lá Fhéile Bríde in Irish Gaelige or Là Fhèill Brìghde in Scots Gaelic. Imbolc means “in the womb or belly” or even “lactation”. ‘Imbolc’ is mentioned three times in Kinsella’s translation of the Tain but also in O’Rahilly’s translation…  Cú Chulainn’s battles, happened, “cosin cétaín íar n-imolg” on the Wednesday after Imbolc”. Imbolc is mentioned in another Old Irish poem about the Táin in the Metrical Dindshenchas: “iar n-imbulc, ba garb a ngeilt”, which Edward Gwynn translates “after Candlemas, rough was their herding”. Here, it was spelled Imbulc, but Edward Gwynn translated to Candlemas because that was the English holiday name for it. The tale Tochmarc Emire, which survives in a 10th-century version, names Imbolc as one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals, and says it is “…when the ewes are milked at spring’s beginning”.

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