St Brigid’s shoe: metalwork, faith and politics in County Galway in 1710

This paper provides for the first time a description and interpretation of the metal shoe commonly referred to as the shrine of St Brigid’s shoe. Associated with Loughrea, Co. Galway, the shoe was acquired by George Petrie before 1845 and is now held as part of the Royal Irish Academy collection by the National Museum of Ireland. Four key findings are presented. First, that the date inscribed on the shoe, ostensibly 1410, is in fact 1710 and refers to the year of its manufacture. Second, that the shoe is unlikely to have been a reliquary but was a surrogate in devotional terms. Third, that the shoe is specifically derivative of a seventeenth-century shoe-shaped reliquary preserved at Asti in northern Italy. Fourth, that an inscription on the shoe carries a political message in defiance of contemporary legislation. The shoe is discussed throughout with reference to the medieval cult of St Brigid and to wider Irish tradition.