ST. BRIDGET 
Church from the Gersons to the German Sea for 
nearly a thousand years.” 
The place that Bridget achieved for herself in 
the hearts of the Irish men as well as women in her 
time led to the establishment of customs according 
to which women shared much more than could have 
been thought possible under Roman influences in 
the intellectual development and the work of the 
men. The fact that Bridget herself was the abbess 
of a religious institution with both men and women 
under her jurisdiction, is astonishing for our time. 
This custom continued however for centuries and 
spread beyond Ireland itself as is well illustrated by 
the instance of the abbey, convent we would call it, 
of Streonshalh (now Whitby) in England founded 
under the Gaelic tradition. There St. Hilda as we 
have suggested in the following chapter was the 
abbess of a monastery where there were many nuns 
but also a certain number of monks. A very unusual 
circumstance was that the abbesses of Kildare, 
Bridget’s successors for centuries after her time, 
seem to have been formally consulted with regard 
to the appointment of the bishop of Kildare. This 
custom did not go so far as to permit her to nominate 
the bishop, but the abbess apparently had the right 
of veto with regard to candidates whom she might 
deem unsuitable for the position because of the very 
close relations that existed between the bishopric and 
the abbey. 
The first bishop of Kildare, Conlaeth, is usually 
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