Lá Fhéile Bríde

Contemporary jewellery designer Martina Hamilton is also the owner / director of Sligo’s Hamilton Gallery. The exhibition space has been a significant contributor to the Irish Foreign Ministry inspired Bridgids Day / Lá Fhéile Bride celebration of women and creativity since 2019, hosting a series of invited artists exhibitions centered on the life and work of influential Irish women such as Leland Bardwell, Eva Gore-Booth and Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin.

Hundreds of Irish women artists have contributed to these exhibitions which have been shown in Sligo, Dublin and London, and in association with Irish Consulates and Embassies in New York and Berlin.

The 1st of February marks the first day of spring. In Ireland it is known as Lá Fhéile Bhríde, Brigid's Day.

In pre Christian ancient Irish mythology, Brigid appears as a fire goddess, as a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the daughter of the Dagda and wife of Bres, with whom she had a son named Ruadán. She was the god of numerous skills and qualities including wisdom and poetry. She had curative and protective powers. She was also the god of fire as well as being the god of metal forging and blacksmithing.

Her qualities were so numerous and significant that she may well have been a triple Deity, or indeed that she had two sisters, Brigid the Healer and Brigid The Smith. Her feast day was known as the Celtic celebration Imbolc.

With the onset of Christianity in Ireland she became Brigid of Kildare, and ranks as of the nations 3 patron saints alongside St Patrick and St Columba.

Many legends and myths surround the wisdom, gentleness, ferocity and miracles of St Brigid's life to match her pre-Christian influence and power. Pre-eminent is the story of how she wove crosses from wild Irish rushes, a tradition carried on throughout Ireland to this day.

In recent years Brigid's Day - Lá Fhéile Bride in Irish - has been elevated into a global celebration of women and creativity through the agency of Irelands embassy’s and consular missions around the world.

Contemporary Jewellery Designer and Goldsmith Martina Hamilton through her Sligo Art Gallery, Hamilton Gallery, has been deeply engaged in this emerging vibrant celebration. With the support of Irelands Department of Foreign Affairs, Hamilton Gallery has hosted art exhibitions in Sligo, Dublin, London, Berlin themed on powerful and creative women in modern Ireland.

The exhibitions were celebrations of the life and work of poet and novelist Leland Bardwell (2019), Poet, playwright, suffragist, workers’ rights campaigner, social revolutionary pacifist Eva Gore-Booth (2020 /21), and currently on a specially commissioned new poem from poet Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin.

Each exhibition featured contributions from over 100 invited women artists.

Irelands Neolithic, pre-Christian and early Christian heritage have been profound sources of influence for Martina Hamilton as a jewellery designer and maker. Her earliest collections from 1989 were inspired by ancient stone carvings at globally celebrated sites such a s Knowth, Lough Crew, and New Grange. Indeed, county Sligo, where Martina grew-up lives and works is one of the richest places in Europe for Neolithic structures, some dating back over 6000 years.

Early Christian motifs, crosses and carvings are equally poignant and moving sources of inspiration for Martina. Upon leaving college where she specialized in sculpture it was only natural that the ancient symbolisms her local culture is steeped in would influence her emerging jewellery design.

“As a sculptor you must respond in the first instance to the materials in which you work. You have to be sensitive to how the material you work in will make decisions for you, and how they can respond and will inform what you do. When I began creating and making in silver and gold I adored the way I could on the smallest of scales, emulate the textures and ruggedness of symbols carved by our ancestors literally thousands of years ago. The ways they worked, the materials they had at hand, stone, wood, reeds… for me these were wonderful things to find I could emulate in precious metal”

Many of Martina’s earliest designs remain among her most popular and in demand through her Sligo shop The Cat and The Moon. For “Lá Fhéile Bríde” we bring a selection of the woven crosses she has created down through the years.