The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion, and Power in Celtic Ireland |  | Author: Mary Condren
Publisher: New Island Books
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Seller: Picky Eggheads
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 349976
Media: Paperback
Pages: 296
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 190260296X
Dewey Decimal Number: 941
EAN: 9781902602967
ASIN: 190260296X
Publication Date: December 31, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This landmark book on feminist political theology is back in print. Focusing on Ireland, it provides a startling account of the decline of matriarchal power in Western civilization and analyzes its implications for today's women and today's Catholic Church. From the Age of Eve to the Age of Brigit, then the Age of Mary, to the Age of the Fathers, she traces the rise of patriarchal consciousness. She traces Brigit's roles as goddess and the remnants and traces of her in the old literature; her rise as Abbess for Kildare or Christian saint; and then her demise. She shows how Brigit had a tremendous influence over the rise of Christianity (in the 1100s Brigit had more churches named after her than Mary). After the rise of the twelfth century church and the imposition of dioceses, Mary became much more important as a symbol of virginity, as a symbol of the control of female sexuality. Then came the decline of the goddess and Brigit's influence and a rise in the repression of women. A pioneering and passionate book about the critical intersections between religion, Celtic myth, and the role of women. In a time of spiritual upheaval and questioning, this is a book that cries out to be read and re-read.""-Richard Kearney. Originally published in 1989 (Harper Collins), this is a very significant contribution to the reconstruction of Christian history in feminist terms. Mary Condren teaches at Trinity College's Centre for Women's Studies.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Invite Home the Power of the Irish Feminine August 21, 2001
Frank MacEowen (California-Georgia-Ireland)
24 out of 26 found this review helpful
This book should not be out of print, furthermore, every Irish descendant should read it. The Serpent and the Goddess is an in-depth exploration of the demise of the feminine in Ireland by a Romanized and patriarchal Christian tradition. Condren pulls no punches and she probably could have thrown a few more. The hopeful aire to the book is the fact that the Irish feminine has not disappeared, and her piece by piece, step by step mapping of the suppression of the feminine in the Celtic traditions is done in such a manner to almost offer a prophetic vision of her return, within both primal, druidic as well as in Celtic Christian ways.
An Ancient Goddess is Transformed into a Saint June 18, 1998
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
A history of the many faces of the Celtic Bridget, from Goddess to Catholic Saint. Read about the legends and the politics that forced changes to them.
 Unsupported Ranting July 18, 2000
Liana Winsauer (Chicago-ish, IL)
16 out of 56 found this review helpful
I have a guilty admission to make: I was misled by the presence of footnotes. When I bought this book, I was looking for something interesting, historical, and scholarly about Irish history. The words "Women's Studies" lurking in small print on the back cover should have been a tipoff that this book wasn't what I was looking for. Mary Condren argues that, before the advent of Christianity, Ireland was a matriarchal society, where family relationships kept warfare and bloodshed in check, and women and men lived, worked, and shared power on equal terms. In this society, the Goddess was only one of many deities worshiped, and each region had its own special interpretation of what she was. Then, Condren asserts, Christianity came along. To enforce the idea of one God, societies that adopted Christianity also had to adopt patriarchy and national monarchy. Also, she argues, the very nature of Christianity results in the repression of women. She uses the examples of Brigit and the Virgin Mary, among others, to illustrate her view of how Irish society and religion changed through the adoption of Christianity. In her opinion, changed for the worse. The book is well-written, fairly interesting, and Condren's arguments don't make any amazing leaps that I can't follow. However, she doesn't offer enough (any?) background to make the underlying assumptions that her arguments are built on believable. She doesn't convince me that pre-Christian Ireland was an almost-paradise, and I'm not convinced that Christianity requires patriarchy, monarchy, and female repression. I can't help but think of this book as anything but a rabid feminist rant with no visible means of support.
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