Áed mac Bricc
Áed mac Bricc was an Irish bishop and saint.
Life
Áed's principal church was at Rahugh in modern County Westmeath. He was regarded as a patron saint of the Uí Néill and was said to be a descendant of Fiachu mac Néill. When his brothers refused to allow him a share of the land his father had maintained, Áed carried off a girl who belonged to them. He hoped to force his brothers to give him his patrimony through this injury, but then he met the bishop St Illann, who convinced him to give up his claims to the land and to let the girl go.Áed mac Bricc's life in the Codex Salmanticensis presents Áed as a peacemaker between Munster and the Uí Néill, and between Mide and Tethbae, befitting his cross-border descent through his mother, Eithne, from the neighbouring Munster people of Múscraige Tíre.
An early Latin Life of Áed, perhaps dating from the period 750-850, survives. Although the Life borrows from Adomnán's Life of Columba, a copy of which may have been obtained from the nearby monastery of Durrow, its central concerns are with local violence and with the poverty and insecurity of women, especially nuns. Áed seems to have had a profound interest in the well-being of religious women. He frequently visited settlements of holy virgins who received him with the respect due to a man of his position. On one occasion, when he perceived that the girl serving him was pregnant he fled from the building both to avoid the pollution and to shame her. She confessed her sins and did penance. Áed was not one to leave someone under his care in a difficult situation; he blessed her womb and the baby disappeared as if it had never been there.
Áed's connection to holy women is taken up by Lisa Bitel in Isle of the Saints, by Jim Tschen-Emmons, and in the dissertation by Judyta Szaciłło.