[Today we sit down with author Pauline Breen. Here, she discusses her books on Maman Brigitte and Brigantia; her personal spiritual practices; and her upcoming projects.]

Forests Haunted By Holiness: How do you define your personal spiritual practice? Does it have a name or is it more eclectic?

Pauline Breen: I don’t really have a label. I guess, I’ve always been spiritually minded and I think I live quite spiritually. If I had to define my practice I’d say my spirituality is the Divine Feminine and my matron deity is Brigit.

FHBH: Which Deities, spirits, or other powers do you honor in your practice?

PB: My principal goddess is Brigit. I find her a wonderful, multifaceted deity. All of the faces of Brigit make her a fascinating, complex, and powerful deity that can help us in many, if not all, of our needs.

Outside of Brigit I am intrigued by Athena, Cerridwen, and Merlin. I haven’t had a deep dive into these as of yet, because I am really devoted and connected to Brigit, in all her guises, for now. 

FHBH: You recently released one book for the Pagan Portals series about Maman Brigitte, and have another about Brigantia set to come out at the end of July. First, congratulations! Second, how did these books come about? Did you approach Moon Books or did they come to you?

PB: I started to research Brigit as goddess a few years back and ended up compiling it into a book format, which I self published. During the research of Brigit as goddess, that invariably took in her saintly aspect, I also came across the mentions of Maman Brigitte and Brigantia.

After I self published This Is Brigid, I started to research Maman Brigitte. Once that was finished I approached Moon Books, and the rest is history.

After the release of Maman Brigitte, I researched Brigantia and proposed that to Moon Books, which was fortunately accepted.

Brigit as goddess, Maman Brigitte, and Brigantia are three specific faces of Brigit that I invoke and honour for particular reasons and matters. 

FHBH: Maman Brigitte is widely honored in Vodou communities in Haiti and the United States (especially Louisiana). What draws people to her? For those who are curious, how do you recommend they start honoring Maman Brigitte and building a relationship with her?

PB: My research of Maman Brigitte is through an historical lens, particularly through an Irish, historical lens. Brigit, for the most part, is still widely venerated in Ireland as saint. From what I had previously found about Maman Brigitte, she was an extension of Brigit of Ireland. For many Irish people, it is inconceivable that any Irish ‘saint’ would be connected to vodou. I felt guided to research as much as I possibly could through an historical framework to document how the Irish ended up in the Caribbean and in New Orleans, show how Irish and Western African and Haitian cultures blended, and how Brigit of Ireland came to form a part of the personality of Maman Brigitte.

Maman Brigitte is a book that has Ireland and the western world as the intended audience. I do not practice Vodou. I never have. And from what I understand, vodou practices are closed to outsiders. I felt strongly prompted and guided in my research of Maman Brigitte and I learned some things about Vodou, and after that, that’s where I stop. I am not a vodousaint. 

I invoke Maman Brigitte specifically at Samhain and I let her guide me to what I need to face in my shadow or let die. Maman Brigitte is a lwa of death and I feel honoured to have discovered a unique, more sombre face of Brigit that exists outside of the Irish pantheon. I hope my research and writing about her shows how many of our spiritual practices contain elements of familiarity that reveal how more similar than dissimilar we are as a human family. One day, I might feel guided to delve deeper into her and vodou, but for now, my work focuses on looking deeply into all that Brigit is and as a consequence, all that she can help us with. 

For anybody looking to connect to Maman Brigitte, I suggest perhaps reading my book to get a basic understanding of the history, and political and societal factors that surrounded her emergence. I then suggest looking to an experienced Vodousaint for further guidance if that is what you feel guided to do.

FHBH: If you could correct one common misconception about Maman Brigitte, what would it be?

PB: I can’t speak on this as I am living and mingling with people who are not following African traditional religions, but what I will say is that there are so many similarities between Maman Brigitte and Brigit of Ireland as opposite sides of the same coin. These similarities, are, in my opinion, too great to ignore. 

FHBH: You describe Brigantia as both a warrior Goddess and a mother Goddess. How do these two roles overlap? What do the surviving myths and archaeological evidence tell us about her?

PB: Indeed any mother can turn into a fierce protectress, when the need arises. This is the energy that I felt flowed through my research on Brigantia. There is no definitive evidence that Brigantia existed in Britain as a mother goddess figure before the arrival of the Romans. But certainly, during Roman occupation of Britain, the status and cult of Brigantia rose and flourished. Brigantia was invoked by the Britons to help defend their lands from Roman invasion. She was also invoked by the Romans to assist with territorial expansion. Archaelogical evidence, mostly from Roman Inscriptions of Britain, tells us that she was revered, feared, and widely worshipped in Roman Britain. 

FHBH: What sort of research went into Brigantia: Warrior Goddess? Big stacks of books? Long discussions with scholars and devotees?

PB: To be honest, so little is known or has been written into concise works about Maman Brigitte and Brigantia. My intuition is what guides me to open up research and see where it takes me in books, articles, and also to the lands that are most associated with the aspect or face of her that I am focusing on. 

FHBH: Which book fairs, conventions, or other events do you hope to attend in the foreseeable future?

PB: I am giving two 1.5 hrs talks on ‘The Faces of Brigid’ at the end of July and ‘Brigantia’ in September. I am doing a book signing of Brigantia in Crooked Books, Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire on the 14th August. 

FHBH: What other projects are you working on?

PB: I have another book coming out in 2026 that looks at another very specific face of Brigit. This will not be with Moon Books.