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ENCYCLOP’DIA BRITANNICA
Irish monasticism
Although monks and monasteries were to be found in Ireland at the time of Patrick, their place was then altogether secondary. But in the course of the 6th and 7th centuries a comprehensive monastic system developed in Ireland, partly through the influence of Celtic monasteries in Britain, such as Candida Casa at Whithorn in Galloway and Llangarvan in Wales. Early attempts to organize the Irish church on the usual Roman system--by which each bishop and his clergy exercised exclusive jurisdiction within a diocese--seem to have given way to one in which groups of Christian settlements were loosely linked together, usually under the auspices of some one or other of the great saints. Careful study of the lives of the early saints reveals the manner in which their reputations developed in proportion to the power of the political dynasties that became connected with them.
By the end of the 6th century, enthusiasm for Christianity was leading Irishmen to devote themselves to a most austere existence as monks, as hermits, and as missionaries to pagan tribes in Scotland and the north of England and in a great area of west-central Europe, particularly between the Rhine, Loire, and Rh“ne rivers. St. Columba's foundation (c. 563) of the monastery of Iona off the northwest Scottish coast provided the best-known base for the Celtic Christianization of Scotland; and its offshoot, Lindisfarne, lying off the coast of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, was responsible for the conversion of that area. Of the continental missionaries, the best known is St. Columban (c. 543-615), whose monastic foundations at Luxeuil near Annegray in the Vosges and at Bobbio in northern Italy became important centres of learning. Columban, however, by his individualism and austere puritanism, came into conflict not only with the Merovingian rulers of Gaul but also with the local ecclesiastical administration; his limitations exemplify those of the Irish monastic system as a whole and explain why, in the end, it was supplanted by the ordinary administrative system of the church.
Learning and art
Both at home and abroad the saints were succeeded by scholars, whose work in sacred and classical studies and particularly in elaborating an Irish Christian mythology and literature was to have profound effects on the Irish language and was to be a major factor in its survival. The Irish monasteries became notable centres of learning; in Ireland itself those of Clonmacnoise (in County Offaly) and Clonard (in County Meath) were among the most famous. Christianity had brought to Ireland the Latin tongue and command of the Latin authors; not only Church Fathers but also classical writers were read and studied. Irish scribes produced manuscripts written in the clear hand known as Insular; this usage spread from Ireland to Anglo-Saxon England and to Irish monasteries on the Continent. Initial letters in the manuscripts were illuminated, usually with intricate ribbon and zoomorphic designs. The most famous of the Irish manuscripts is the Book of Kells, a copy of the four Gospels probably dating from the late 8th to the early 9th century. The earliest surviving illuminated manuscript, the Book of Durrow, was probably made about a century earlier.
The adoption of Christianity made it necessary to relate the chronology of Irish tradition, history, and genealogies to the events recorded in the Bible. The Book of Invasions (Leabhar Gabh la), in which Irish history was linked with events in the Old Testament, was a notable example of this process. In this way Latin civilization in Ireland became linked to the Gaelic; and the association became closer under the impact of the Viking wars. Gradually the Latin products of the Christian schools became replaced by Irish works; Latin lives of the saints, for example, are almost always earlier in date than those written in Irish. Recurring bouts of puritanism and reforming movements in the church tended to remove secular literature from monastic control; ultimately there developed a class of professional families who were its custodians from the 12th to the 17th century. The medieval secular writers, employing a degenerate form of Old Irish usually known as Middle Irish, were responsible for a large proportion of Irish literary achievement; their historical works, the annals, and the great genealogies, supplemented by the law collections, have enabled historians to reconstruct early Irish social history.
The Norse invasions and their aftermath
The first appearance of the Norsemen on the Irish coast is recorded in 795. Thereafter the Norsemen made frequent plundering raids, sometimes far inland. They seized and fortified two ports, Annagassan and Dublin, in 838; and in the 840s they undertook a series of large-scale invasions in the north of the country. These invaders were driven out by Aed Finnliath, high king from 862 to 879, but meanwhile the Norse rulers of Dublin were reaching the zenith of their power. They took Waterford in 914 and Limerick in 920. Gradually, without quite abandoning piracy, the Vikings became traders in close association with the Irish, and their commercial towns became a new element in the life of the country. The decline of Norse power in the south began when they lost Limerick in 968 and was finally effected when the Scandinavian allies of the king of Dublin were defeated by High King Brian Boru at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014.
Although the Battle of Clontarf removed the prospect of Norse domination, it brought a period of political unsettlement. High kings ruled in Ireland but almost always "with opposition," meaning that they were not acknowledged by a minority of provincial kings. The Viking invasions had, in fact, shown the strength and the weakness of the Irish position. The fact that power had been preserved at a local level in Ireland enabled a maximum of resistance to be made; and, although the invaders established maritime strongholds, they never achieved any domination comparable to their control of eastern England or northwestern France. After Clontarf they remained largely in control of Ireland's commerce but came increasingly under the influence of neighbouring Irish kings.
In the 11th and 12th centuries the ecclesiastical reform movement of western Europe was extended into Ireland. And, as the kings of Munster and Connaught, Leinster and Ulster struggled each to secure the dominant position that had once been held by Brian Boru, they came to realize the value to them of alliance with the forces of church reform. Thus, with the aid of provincial rulers, the reformers were able to set up in Ireland a system of dioceses whose boundaries were coterminous with those of the chief petty kingdoms. At the head of this hierarchy was established the archbishopric of Armagh, in association with the province of Ulster dominated by the royal family of U¡ N‚ill. But the victory of the reformers was not complete, for the parochial system was not introduced until after the Anglo-Norman invasion. Moreover, the reformers sought to influence Irish conduct as well as church organization. The enormities of Irish moral behaviour were colourfully described by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in his life of his contemporary St. Malachy, the reforming bishop who introduced the Cistercian monks into Ireland. The reforming popes Adrian IV and Alexander III encouraged Henry II's invasion of Ireland, believing that it would further church reform in that country. In a remarkable account of the conquest, Gerald of Wales provided a lurid description of the archaic Irish civilization that the invaders encountered. The recognition of Henry II as lord of Ireland and the linking of the church to a foreign administration terminated the independence of Gaelic Ireland and reduced the country to a position of subordination for centuries to come.
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