The Celtic Church of the Isles, Part 1: The Early Days

The modern patron saints of all Ireland are St. Patrick of Armagh, St. Colmcille of Iona, andSt. Brigid of Kildare.  But that list dates no earlier than the late 9th century, long after the early period of the Irish church, when Patrick was little discussed and would have been absent from the list while in his place stood St. Ida of Kileedy.

The Irish church before Patrick

The true first of the Irish saints was St. Ciaran the Elder, bishop of Saighir in the kingdom of the Osraige, a territory originally part of Leinster but then part of Munster, then back in the sphere of Leinster, and finally semi-independent.  Ciaran was born around 375 CE, converted and left the island for pursuit of religious study on the Continent , then returned around 425, six years before the arrival of Palladius.  He died sometime after 455.

Around the same time as or soon after Ciaran’s floruit, St. Declan of Ardmore was evangelizing the Deisi Mumhan and St. Ailbe of Emly was apostlizing the Eoghanchta Aine in Mumha.  To the east, St. Ibar mac Lugna of Beggerin was missionizing the Ui Cheinnselaig in Laighin, and St. Abban of Moyarney was converting the Ui Chormaic of Laighin.

Note that the kingdoms all of these apostles were evangelizing – Osraige (Ossory), Mumha (Munster), Laighin (Leinster) – lay in Ireland’s south.

That there were Christians in Ireland at this time is not surprising due to couple of major factors.  First of all, Munster hosted numerous harbors and ports that traded with Gaul and Spain in the Christian Roman Empire, while Leinster carried on a brisk commerce with next-door Roman Britannia.

Second, beginning in the 4th century, several Irish tribes had planted colonies in various parts of Christian Roman Britain.

The Ui Liathain of Munster colonized northern Wales, then later Dumnonia (Devon and Cornwall).

The Deisi planted a colony in Demetia (southwest Wales), where they gave name to Dyfed and to Brycheneiog as well as to Ystrad Aeron, “valley of the Irish” (Brythonic counterpart of Strath Eireann, Strathearn).

The Laighin for whom Leinster is named in later northern Wales, where they  left their name in the Lleyn Peninsula.  The Ui Liaithain left their legacy in Venedotia (Gwenydd), which derives its name from “Feni”, an older name for the Irish as a whole, from which they were driven by Cunedda Wledig and his sons and their followers. 

These latter were Votadini warriors, foederati of the empire, who belonged to the tribe that formed the kingdoms of Manaw, Eiddyn, and Gododdin in what later became Bernicia (northeast England counties of Northumberland and Durham) and its sub-district of Lothian (southeast Scotland) migrated from Manaw to what became Gwynedd in probably the mid-5th century, possibly at the invitation of the Sub-Roman British leader Vortigern.

A major influence on the direction of Christianity both in Ireland and in Britain was St. Martin of Tours in Gaul, who lived 316-397 CE.  Inspired by the cenobites of Egypt, Martin had followed their example to become the founder of Western monasticism.  He was also an ardent Trinitarian and strongly opposed putting heretics to death.  With Ireland, his influence came from two directions, directly from Gaul and by way of Britain.

With several exceptions, more so in later years than earlier, Insular monasticism often took form in conhospitae, or joint houses of monks and nuns living together.  In Ireland the most famous example is the conhospita of St. Brigid at Kildare.  At least in Ireland, many of the monks and nuns married and raised their children there, and monastics moved in and out of the convent as they felt the call.

Emissaries

The Pope sent Palladius to Ireland as his emissary in 431, with largely the same assignment as Germanus and Lupus in Britain in 429: to combat Pelagianism among Christians, which implies a sizable enough community of which to take notice.  Though Patrick’s hagiographers portray him as staying but a little while before relocating east, the most reliable texts count Palladius’ Irish ministry as lasting three decades, with him dying in 461.

Many saints formerly associated with Patrick are now known to have been instead disciples or students of his predecessor Palladius.  Foremost of these are St. Isernius of Ui Cheinnselaig in Leinster (died 456), St. Auxilius of Killashee in modern Co. Kildare (died 459), and St. Seachnall of Dunshaughlin, near Tara, in Meath (died 468).

St. Palladius

Pope Celestine sent Palladius of Poiters in Armorica to Ireland as his emissary in 431, with largely the same assignment as Germanus and Lupus in Britain in 429: to combat Pelagianism among Christians, which implies a sizable enough community of which to take notice.  According to some accounts, he also sent Palladius as the island’s first bishop. 

Palladius arrived with four companions:  Augustinus and Benedictus, who later with him to establish a mission in the kingdom of Circinn (in the old Angusshire and Kincardineshire) in northern Great Britain, and Sylvester and Solinus, who remained in Ireland.  Circinn was one of the kingdoms of the Caledonii.  According to Pictish and Scottish soucres, Palladius died at Auchenblae, Kincardineshire, in 461, after staying twenty years, which means he must have stayed ten in Ireland.

Many saints formerly associated with Patrick are now known to have been instead disciples or students of his predecessor Palladius.  Foremost of these are St. Isernius of Ui Cheinnselaig in Leinster (died 456), St. Auxilius of Killashee in Co. Kildare (died 459), and St. Seachnall of Dunshaughlin, near Tara, in Meath (died 468).

Myths about Patrick of Armagh

According to the traditional Church version deriving from the backers of Patrick’s cult in Armagh eager to assert their power and influence and reap a share of the tithes from across the island, Christianity first came to Ireland with Patrick, who arrived as specially appointed missionary bishop.  He drove the snakes out of Ireland, used a shamrock to amaze the ignorant Irish with the mystery of the Trinity, defeated the druids in a mystical contest, and evangelized the entire island.

The problems with this set of assertions is that there have been no snakes in Ireland since before the last Great Ice Age, the pagan Irish had so many triune deities of their own that they probably explained the concept of Trinity to Patrick, and the stories of his mystical encounters with druids, while perhaps based on real incidents, are the result of imaginative embellishment.

Patrick has also been credited with heading a commission of twelve men who codified Irish law under appointment in 438 by Laoghaire, high king at Tara, with the results pronounced three years later in the Laws of the Fenechas (freeholders).  This law was divided into the Senchus Mor (criminal law) and Lebhor Achaill (civil law).  These same historians also credit Patrick’s alleged favorite disciple, St. Benin of Armagh, with the promulgation of the Book of the Rights and Privileges of Kings.

Those who made up this fantasy apparently did not realize that neither kings nor Christian clerics had much to do with legal matters in 5th century Ireland, that being solely the domain of brehons (judges) and dalaighs (lawyers) at the time.  Besides, Patrick was probably only born around 423, so if the codification of the Laws of the Fenechas truly did take place in 441, Patrick was barely eighteen.

Until recently, historians of the early Irish church organized its development into three “orders” of saints, with specific years for the ending of each “order”.  In this scheme, Patrick consecrated 450 bishops to carry on his mission, which included organizing the church in Ireland along Continental lines.  In the second wave, women were excluded from convents, priests used various rites, and abbots increased in importance.  The third wave increased all the points of the second wave.

The main problems with this scheme are (1) that there were already Christians in Ireland long before Patrick and (2) the spread and development of Christianity in Ireland can’t really be divided into neat “orders” since characteristics of each supposed “order” existed simultaneously throughout the history of the early Irish church.  Christianity had, in fact, existed in Ireland several decades before Patrick’s arrival in the north, especially in Leinster, through contact with Roman Britain, and in Munster, through contact with Roman Gaul and Spain. 

Historians of the early Irish church now date Patrick’s death to 493 (the date that the Annals of Ulster give) rather than 461, and place his arrival around 455 rather than in the year 432, which the advocates of the cult of Patrick in Armagh chose in order to minimize the mission of St. Palladius, whose accomplishments they unfairly belittled.

Several of the saints traditionally associated with Patrick by adherents of his cult come from disparate time periods stretched across two centuries and often have no relation to Patrick or each other.  Much the same desire for convenience brought together heroes and prominent figures from across the 5th, 6th, and early 7th centuries in Britain, from the Firths of Scotland in the north to the shores of the Mare Britannicus and the Mare Frisia in the south, have been rolled into the tales of Arthur. 

Arthur himself is another figure besieged by myth, a real-life military figure, whether general of a mobile army or leader of a guerrilla-style war band, whom later tellers of tales and political expediency turned into a mystic once-and-future king.  And there’s a good chance he was Irish by birth instead of Briton or Roman, certainly not Sarmatian.

Or, for another example, one more closer to our subject, look at the way a number of Irish saints from different periods were brought together under the roof of the school of St. Finnian of Clonard as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland by Irish hagiographers.

Eastern influence

As much as by the form of its druidic predecessors who studied and practiced in “colleges”, the Irish church was influenced by the practices of the East rather than of the West, as were those in Gaul and Britain.  In fact, nearly all of the practices overturned at the Synod of Streonshalh (Whitby), but only accepted piecemeal by the various Insular churches, were those shared with the East.  Like its dating of Easter and worship on the actual Sabbath, the Irish church followed the form of the rites of the East, and continued to do so long after all its parts accepted Streonshalh.

The capital of the empire, Constantinople, lay in the East even though its origin remained in the West.  The East, its central base, continued as the Roman Empire nearly a millennium after the last emperor in the west had died.  That, by the way, happened in 480 rather than in 476; his name was Flavius Julius Nepos.  However, the Prefecture, later Exarchate, of Italiae continued for several more centuries, as did the Prefecture/Exachate of Africa revived in the mid-6th century.  The Senate of Rome continued well into the 7th century, at the beginning of which statues of the then emperor and empress were placed in the Forum.

The (imperial) Diocese of Britain, made up of five provinces, was cut off or cut itself off from the empire during the reign of the usurper Constantine III, to whom Britanniae, Galliae, and Hispaniae gave allegiance.  Its powers-that-be took the opportunity to seek independence as did their cousins in Armorica, the later Brittany, around 410.  By 417, six years after the collapse of Constantine III’s rebellion, some imperial presence had returned to both outskirts.

An imperial diocese, as opposed to an ecclesiastical diocese, was the larger unit made up of smaller provinces.  In the church, this was reversed, with the province being the larger unit made up of smaller dioceses.  The governor of an imperial diocese was called a vicar, while the governor of a province was called a rector; in the Church, the importance of these two offices was likewise reversed, the rector being over a parish and the vicar over a mission or a small church dependent on a larger institution.

In 461, after Roman Gaul north of the River Loire was cut off from the rest of the empire by conquests of the Visigoths and Burgundians, the Magister Militum of Gaul, Aegidius, established an exarchate of the empire with its seat at Noviodunum, the later Soissons.  Often referred to as the Domain of Soissons by historians, in succeeding decades of the contemporary period this would have been called the Ducatas Noviodunum and may have been so at the time.  Under Aegidius and his successor, Syagrius, the exarchate lasted until 486, and with it was closely associated the diocese of Britain.

This chaos in the western half of the empire, even in the part that did actually remain part of the empire, played a large part in the primary influence upon Irish ritual and practice coming from the East farther away in distance. 

Patrick of Armagh in Iar Connacht

Christianity first arrived in Iar Connacht in the mid-5th century, at least in its eastern regions straddling Loch Orbsen.  In the far reaches of the Conmaicne Mara, it took a little more time.  According to most accounts, Patrick of Armagh brought the religion here himself.

While his importance may have been exaggerated to mythic proportions by proponents of his cult and of the power of the see of Armagh, Patrick was indeed an important figure in the early Irish church, at least in Ulster and Connacht, and probably Meath.  Among the non-Armagh examples of this is a Paschal tract owned by St. Cummin Fada, Abbot of Clonfert (died 661), which he attributed to “sanctus Patricius, papa noster”.

In the 5th century, Patrick established two abbeys within Iar Connacht, one at Roscam among the later Clan Fearghaill, probably then part of the territory of the Meadhraighe, and another among the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair east of Loch Orbsen in Abbeytown.  The first failed to make it through the early decades of the Viking Wars, but the latter under his disciple St. Felart, known as Donaghpatrick Abbey, survived into medieval times to become the regional center of the churches in the Muintir Padraig and later the seat of a an early diocese.

Among the Delbhna Cuile Fabhair, Patrick and/or his followers established churches in the townlands of Donaghpatrick, Oranmore, Roscam, and Killower.  To the north of them among the Conmaicne Cuile Tolad they established a church in Cahernicole West.  Across Loch Orbsen among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha, they founded a church in Turlough, and in Loch Orbsen itself within the territory of that same group another on Inchagoill Island.

Patrick’s contemporaries Iar Connacht

Two contemporaries of Patrick with strictly local influence also put their efforts into attempts at evangelizing the region’s pagan populace.  One is the “Pious Foreigner” for whom Inchagoill Island is named and where he had his home.  His name is not recorded unless he was actually named Gall; there is a church founded by or at least dedicated to him in the townland of Killaguile among the Delbhna Tir Da Locha.  The other is the female St. Anhin, who may have had the early convent on Inishmacatreer Island and for whom two churches are named in the townland of Killannin as well as the townland itself and the civil parish.