St. Brigid was born about the year 452 at a place called Foghert, near Dundalk. She founded her convent under or near an oak tree, from which the town and county of Kildare took their present name. She was the mother and foundress of many others and was known as the "Wonderful Worker" throughout Ireland. On the 1st of February, 525, she died and was buried at Kildare. Her nuns honored her memory so much that they kept a fire continually burning both day and night which was not extinguished until 1220, when the Archbishop of Dublin ordered it to be put out, as it was fast becoming the object of superstition. Owing to the Scandinavian raids upon Ireland, in which they tore down churches and monasteries, her body was taken from Kildare and transferred to Down Patrick. In 1185 a triple vault was discovered containing the bodies of St. Patrick, St. Brigid and St. Columba. On the 9th of June, 1186, or thereabouts, the Pope caused the relics of these three great saints to be placed in the Cathedral of Down. This cathedral with its contents was destroyed by order of King Henry VIII of England, but pieces of the relics, including the head of St. Brigid, were saved by some clergy. The head was carried to Neustadt, in Austria. In 1587, Emperor Rudolf gave it to the Church of the Jesuits at Lisbon. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, her hand is preserved at Lumiar, near Lisbon, Portugal, and another relic is at St. Martin's, Cologne. _Cat Brack._--This was the name given to printed matter found in Irish primers supplied by the Irish Protestant Society to Irish-speaking Roman Catholics in those parts, because the former, under the color and pretense of preserving the Irish language, both oral and written, instead taught the Protestant version of the Scriptures and thereby attempted to overthrow the Roman Catholic religion. This campaign started out very active in 1836 and lingered on to the last days of the last century. While the scholars were learning both teachers and pupils were in receipt of pay. Some teachers made it a practice to enter the names of Roman Catholics on their roll books who were not students, but as a friendly neighbor would accommodate the teacher so as to enable him to get his fees. _Catholic Rent._--This was a tax levied in 1823 upon Catholics by Daniel O'Connel's Catholic Association to support the fight for emancipation.