The Irish church in the 8th century was insular, secularized, and predominantly monastic. Viking raids beginning in 795 disrupted the church and led to the establishment of the first Irish towns. Norman invasion in the 12th century and English colonization that followed radically changed Ireland, dividing it into Gaelic and Anglo-Irish cultural zones. Irish church reform established a new diocesan structure but discrimination between the Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Irish emerged and racism became institutionalized. While two distinct nations co-existed uneasily on the island, the church remained officially unified.

1. Christianity and
identity in Ireland
Medieval Ireland 795-1450

2. The Irish Church in the 8 Century
th
• Insular
• Secularised
• Still predominantly
monastic
• Bishops more important
• Golden age ends with
first Viking raid of
Rathlin, 795

3. I. VIKINGS
• What pictures come into your
mind when you think of
Vikings?
• Partial truth…
– yes, 100s of raids
– but accounts biased
– Ireland figured as part of
a wider empire built on
trade and slaves

5. Impact of Vikings
• First towns in Ireland
– Dublin
– Waterford
– Wexford
– Cork
– Limerick
• Slave trade
• Markets
• Bases to launch large scale
attack on the 4 Anglo-Saxon
Kingdoms of England

6. Viking Legacy?
• Here for 300 years
• Established first towns and markets
• Established first permanent territorial dioceses
• Irish were just as vicious,
– sacking of Clonmacnois, 833
• In another story they are raiders that came for a
while and were defeated and succumb to the
allure of “Irishness” – but the evidence does not
support this

7. Irish Church in 9 10 Centuries th- th
• Some Spiritual vibrancy in
the old ways
– Céli Dé of Tallaght, Finglas and
Armagh
• Fresh wave of Peregrinatio
– Eriugena and Carolingian
Empire
– Irish/Scottish monks and
Ottonian Rennaissance
• Schöttenkloster
– Benedictine, not old Irish rules
• Pilgrimage of Gaelic and
Norse kings to Rome
• Stopped in 1060s, why?
Scotts Monastery, Regensburg, Bavaria

8. II. IRISH CHURCH REFORM
• Irish Church in need of
reform
• Gregorian reform
happening on Continent
– Papal authority
– Norm of canon law
– Clerical celibacy
– State/church relationship
revised

9. II. IRISH CHURCH REFORM
• Irish make contact with Canterbury
– Lanfranc 1070-1089
– St Anselm 1093-1109
– 6 Irish Bishops consecrated
– 4 Dublin, 1 Waterford and 1 Limerick, what do you notice?
• Their letters identify problems
– Simony
– Misadministration of sacraments
– Poorly educated clergy
– Defective law of marriage (Anselm: “it is reported that men exchange
their wives as freely and publicly as a man might change his horse”)
– Too many bishops, poor in quality (tribal pawns, not educated)
• Councils of Cashel (1107) and Rathbreasil (1112)
– Attended by lay rulers, bishops, abbots, Papal Legates
– discuss same issues but at the top of the agenda establishment of
territorial dioceses structure

10. St Malachy of Armagh, 1094-1148
• Most important reformer
• His biography gives us the
best insight into the progress
of the Irish reform
movement
– Travelled widely, loves new
monastic innovations
– Introduces Augustinian canons
to Ireland
– Contact with Bernard of
Clairvaux and Cistercianism
– Appointed Archbishop of
Armagh but resigns see
– Establishes Mellifont Abbey,
1142

13. • Most importantly, Malachy laboured to establish an
island-wide territorial diocesan structure
• Dies in Clairvaux, 1148, on way to petition Pope
• Pope sends lawyer John Paparo to address Irish
Concerns
• Synod of Kells-Mellifont, 1152
– Old Norse diocese incorporated
– Break with Canterbury
– See of Patrick at Armagh established as Arch-diocese
– 4 ecclesial provinces, 38 dioceses – structure exists to this day
• Reform executed by passionate men like St Laurence
O’Toole, Bishop of Dublin 1162-1180
• Old problems persisted
• Yet: REFORM WAS HAPPENING!!

14. III. NORMAN CONQUEST &
COLONY
• Big Picture: Angevin Empire

15. Papal Bull Laudabiliter, 1155
Adrian, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his dearest son in Christ, the illustrious
King of the English, greeting and apostolical benediction.
Your Majesty quite laudably and profitably considers how to extend the glory of your name
on earth and increase the reward of eternal happiness in Heaven, when, as a Catholic
Prince, you propose to extend the limits of the Church, to announce the truth of the
Christian faith to ignorant and barbarous nations, and to root out the weeds of vice
from the field of the Lord ; and the more effectually to accomplish this you implore the
counsel and favour of the Apostolic See. In which matter we are confident that the
higher your aim, and the greater the discretion with which you proceed, the happier,
with God's help, will be your success; because those things that originate in the ardour
of faith and the love of religion are always wont to arrive at a good issue and end.
Certainly Hibernia and all the islands upon which Christ the Sun of Justice has shone, and
which have accepted the doctrines of the Christian faith, of right belong, as your
Highness doth acknowledge, to blessed Peter and the Holy Roman Church. Wherefore
we the more willingly sow in them a faithful plantation and a seed pleasing to God, in
as much as we know by internal examination that it will be strictly required of us. You
have signified to us, dearest son in Christ, that you desire to enter the island of
Hibernia to subject that people to laws, and to root out there from the weeds of vice;
also that you desire to pay from every house an annual pension ,of one penny to
blessed Peter, and to preserve ,the rights of the churches of that land inviolate and
whole.

16. Norman Invasion, 1067-72
• Diarmaid mac Murchadha, 1110-1171
– Exiled king of Leinster
– Enlists help of English mercenaries
– These are Norman “Welsh-Marcher Lords”
– Most famously Strongbow (Richard de Clare)
• English not invited! Real question: “Why did
Henry delay so long?”
• 1177 – Prince John appointed Lord of ireland
• Henry’s clear aim: subdue his knights and
conquer Ireland as a kingdom for his son

17. 2 Council of Cashel, 1172
nd
• Henry gets support from
Gaelic kings
– No Gaelic “cause”
– Rory O’Connor, high king of
Ireland allowed to rule
unoccupied lands as a vassal
• Irish bishops accept Henry as
Lord of Ireland
• Pope accepts this position
• Threat of excommunication
for lack of fealty to Henry

18. English Colonisation in the 13th Century
• People
– Not just rulers, 10s of thousands of emigrants from all classes
– Leading aristocracy, the “Earls”
– Replication of Norman feudal society on Irish soil
• Infrastructure
– Market networks, walled towns, castles, village networks, modern farming
methods, sea ports
– “shiring” (32 counties)
• Law and Customs
– “All the laws and customs which are observed in the realm of England
should be observed in Ireland”
– Parliament
– Dublin Castle established by King John in 1204 as seat of English power
– Not independent, dependent on England crown
– A little England on Irish soil

19. English Colonisation in the 13th Century
• A RADICAL PROCESS OF
ANGLICISATION
• GOAL WAS TOTAL
CONQUEST
• YET: CONQUEST WAS
INCOMPLETE
– Reaches peak in 1307, 75% of
land occupied, after that
decline
• TWO NATIONS EMERGE
– Cultural contact zones
– The failure of the conquest and
the implication of the two
nation set-up is the crux of
Irish history

20. What about the church?
• English import their own
church structures: cathedrals,
bureaucracy, customs
• Close link between Church
and State
– Bishop = spiritual lord and
aristocrat (Baron Bishops)
– Assent for candidates had to
be given by King
– Totally different to Gaelic
practice
• ANGLICISATION OF
THE CHURCH LEADS TO
DISCRIMINAITON ON
BOTH SIDES

21. Discrimination
• William Marshal, Lord of Leinster,
1217: “We order you in virtue of the
faith by which you are bound to us
that you shall not allow any Irishman
to be elected or promoted in any
cathedral church in Ireland since when
they are appointed our land of Ireland
is thereby disturbed.”
• Pope horrified: “There is no respect of
persons with God.”
• No effect
• Why this discrimination?
– A change in attitude and perception
– From “insula sanctorum” to “insula
barbarorum”
– Era of the crusades

22. Colony in Decline, 1307-1450
• Gaelic resurgence
– Scottish Gallowglas
• Plague decimated colonial
population (why more than Irish?)
• 100 Years War
• War of the Roses
• Incapable Governors
• Changing attitudes: contamination
• Kings authority retreats to “The
Pale”: outside a different cultural
world
• A MIDDLE NATION WAS
BORN: THE ANGLO-IRISH

23. Anglo-Irish Identity and Racism
• Lionel, Earl of Ulster, 1360-66
• Statutes of Kilkenny, February 1366
– Language
– Law
– Marriage
– Contact
– Access
• Appearance and customs
• Symptom, not a cause
• Institutionalised racism
• Not rigorously enforced

24. IV. THE MENDICANT ORDER
• A popular, relevant new type of
monasticism
– Beggar monks, friars
– Preachers
– Depended on community’s help
for survival
• Arrived with English colonists
– Franciscans and Dominicans, 13th
century
– Carmelites and Augustinians, 14th
century
• 86 houses by 1400
• Began in colonial towns
• Spread to Gaelic areas

25. • Initially transcended cultural divide
• Racism crept in
– 1291, 16 Franciscan friars killed in brawl
– John Clyn: “each one took the side of their own nation”
– Leaders in Rome outraged
– General chapter meeting in Dublin 1324, discipline and new
laws to address situation
– Not adhered to
• Mendicants fell prey to the insipient suspicion,
prejudice and racism that marred Medieval Ireland
• BUT: rejuvenation in 15th century
– The “Observant Movement”
– Over 90 new houses of friars built
– Hospitable relations were established between Gaelic and
Anglo-Irish
– Strong link to Continent

26. V. CONCLUSION
• Church reform as envisaged
by Malachy did happen
• Yet political landscape
transformed
– Unstable polity
– Two naions awkwardly
inhabiting the same land
– 3 cultural zones
• RACISM AND DISTRUST
• BUT ONE FAITH: “united
in Christian essentials.”
– Success of the Franciscan friars
and their crusade against
racism would prove important
in the next century

27. Recommended Reading
• Art Cosgrove (ed.), A New History of Ireland. vol ii, Medieval Ireland,
1169-1534. Oxford: University Press, 1987
• Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonisation and
Cultural Change, 950-1350. London: Penguin, 1993
• John A. Watt, The Church in Medieval Ireland. Dublin: Gill &
Macmillan, 1972
• Aubrey Gwynn, The Irish Church in the Eleventh and Twelth Centuries.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1992
• Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven, A History of Medieval Ireland. London and
New York, 1980
• Kenneth Nicholls, Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland in the Middle Ages.
Dublin, 1972