A national
Church of
Ireland.

St.

Bridget.

It is to be noted that the priests and bishops to whom Patrick entrusted the continuation and development of his work were in almost every instance natives of Ireland, and to this it was due that Christianity became almost at once a national institution. Although he was not himself a native of Ireland, he made no attempt to introduce men of his own nationality, nor, as was subsequently done in England, to bring men from Italy or France. Christianity was not looked upon as coming from foreigners, or as representing the manners and civilization of a foreign nation. Its priests and bishops, the successors of St. Patrick in his missionary labours, were many of them descendants of the ancient kings and chieftains so venerated by a clannish people." 1

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Although the facts relating to her life and work are lost in the mists of tradition,2 some mention should be made of St. Bridget (Brigid, Brigit, or Bride), who is reputed to have been the foundress of a large number of religious communities for women and to whose honour innumerable churches have been dedicated.3 The earliest existing life of her was written by Cogitosus the father of Muirchu (one of Patrick's biographers) not earlier than the middle of the seventh century. This biography does not mention Patrick or bring Bridget into connection with him.4

1 S. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, by Todd, p. 514 f.

The close resemblance between the rites connected with the cult of St. Bridget and those connected with the worship of the pagan Brigantes has been urged as a reason for supposing that the saint and the goddess are to be identified.

3 There are 18 parishes in Ireland called Kilbride, i.e. church of Bridget.

4 Cogitosus' Life of Bridget is printed in Canisii Lectiones antiquæ, vol. v. According to Todd the Life was written in the ninth century. Another life by Anmchad bishop of Kildare dates from the tenth century.

According to later tradition she was born about 450, was baptized by a disciple of Patrick and died in 513. For the greater part of her life she is said to have resided at the monastery of Kildare.

of pagan

Two passages in the Life of Gildas, a Welsh saint A revival (circa 516-570), and in the Life of Disibod have been ism. quoted by several writers as affording evidence of a great pagan reaction throughout Ireland during the latter part of the sixth and the first half of the seventh century, but it is doubtful how far their evidence can be accepted as trustworthy.1 According to the former statement, Gildas by his preaching in Ireland effected a great revival of the faith. Neither of these lives was written earlier than the tenth or eleventh century.

the Danish

The reintroduction of paganism at the time of the Effects of Danish invasion of Ireland throughout large sections invasion. of the island, was in part due to the missionary activities of Charlemagne. He had ravaged Saxony and northern Germany with fire and sword and had compelled their inhabitants to become nominal Christians. Those who escaped his oppression fled to Denmark and Scandinavia and by their tales of the cruelties practised by the Christian King imparted to their hosts their own bitter hatred for the name

Influence of the Druids.

Christian. When then at the close of the ninth century the Danes appeared off the coast of Ireland they were eager to obliterate every sign of Christianity that they found. In 793, according to the Saxon Chronicle, “the Danes came and dreadfully destroyed the churches of Christ." In 795 they were first seen off the Irish coast.

It is probable that the reaction against Christianity was in part due to a revival of the influence of the Druids. Mention occurs of the use of Druidical charms by Fraechan, who is referred to as "the Druid king of Diarmait." 1 The rapid success which Patrick had Super- formerly won is partly to be explained by the superversions. ficial character of the conversions which he secured.

ficial con

of Thor in

Thus Dr. O'Donovan writes: "Nothing is clearer than that Patrick engrafted Christianity on the pagan superstitions with so much skill that he won the people over to the Christian religion before they understood the exact difference between the two systems of belief, and much of this half pagan, half Christian, religion will be found not only in the Irish stories of the middle ages, but in the superstitions of the peasantry to the present day.'

Worship Turgesius, who landed in the north in 831, soon made Armagh himself master of nearly the whole island, and established the worship of Thor in Armagh, himself officiating as high priest. His conquests were in fact a crusade directed against Christianity. The murder of Turgesius in 845 put an end to this crusade and ere many decades had passed the Danes began to be influenced by their

1 See S. Patrick, Apostle of Ireland, 2 Four Masters, p. 131, note. by Todd, p. 119.

Christian surroundings, and paganism tended rapidly to disappear.

An important feature of Celtic Christianity in Ire- Multiland and to a lesser extent in Scotland and Wales was bishops. plicity of its tendency to multiply bishops, who were as a rule attached to monasteries and were not in charge of dioceses. Patrick is said himself to have consecrated no less than three hundred.

The monastic establishment at St. Mochta in Co. Louth possessed 100 bishops. In some cases bishops lived together in groups of seven, the Donegal martyrology containing references to six such groups.1 St. Bernard, writing in the twelfth century, says of Ireland that "bishops were changed and multiplied without order, and without reason, so that one bishopric was not content with a single bishop, but almost every church had its separate bishop.” 2

asticism.

Irish monasticism, the development of which dates Irish monback to the days of Patrick, soon began to exercise a dominating influence upon the Irish Church, and its development rendered possible the missionary work on the continent for which Ireland became famous.

The author of a recent book on Celtic monasticism writes concerning Ireland:

"There were three distinct developments of monasteries which extended from the introduction of Christianity until about the middle of the seventh century. The first was defensive: all Christians lived together for mutual protection: the village either became a Christian settlement, or all the Christian converts lived together and formed a Christian settlement-a fortified villageof their own. Then came the relapse into paganism, followed by the second conversion of Ireland, when Welsh monks came over and established schools of learning and devotion. South Wales provided for the centre and south of Ireland by the school or monastery of Clonard; North Wales providing for the north and Ulster by the school of the Irish Bangor. When these schools filled to overflowing, a third development arose. Monks went forth from the monasteries as hermits or missionaries, or both, and Ireland began to pay back her loan to Wales, by sending over missionaries to complete the conversion of that country. The schools continued and great efforts were made at teaching and converting by the missionaries from those schools. The effort of this last development of Celtic monasticism was checked by two causes, the destruction of the great Welsh monastery of Bangor about 632 and the advance of the Latin clergy." 1

The limits of our space forbid us to dwell upon the organization and history of these monasteries, or missionary colleges, as they deserve to be called, but in describing the efforts made to convert other

1 The Celtic Church of Wales by I. W. Willis Bund, p. 177 f.