What is recorded here

St. Bridget's Bush at Ballybuggy, County Laois, was a hawthorn tree beside a rough holy water stone where devotees hammered coins into the bark. Carrigan recorded the bush still blooming beside the graveyard with ex votos attached, while Feehan captured the coins embedded in its living wood. The stone itself was a crude uneven boulder with a small artificial hollow for water, yet people kept returning to pour, pray and mark the tree because the ordinary stones and branches became a threshold for the sacred.

Reference to 'St. Bridget's Bush, (Carrigan 1905, 341, 342). No visible surface remains. Described by Carrigan as 'St. Bridget's Bush still blooms beside the graveyard (LA034-004002-) and bears the usual ex votos. At the foot of the bush is "St. Bridgets Stone", which is evidently a holy water stone (LA034-004004-), but one of the rudest imaginable, being nothing more than a rough, uneven boulder, 3 ft. by 2 and a half feet and 2 ft. thick, with an artifical hollow 11 in. in diameter and 5 in. deep (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 342). Described by Feehan as 'an old hawthorn tree beside St. Brigid's stone at Ballybuggy; note the coins hammered into the bark by devotees' (Feehan 1983, 110). The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Laois' (Dublin Stationery Office, 1995) compiled by P. David Sweetman, Olive Alcock and Bernie Moran. In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload: 17 December 2007

Linked to St. Brigid, the bush was associated with healing and fertility traditions, common in Irish folklore for sites dedicated to her. Ex votos, such as ribbons or cloth offerings, were left at the bush as part of devotional practices seeking her intercession.

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