CHAPTER 2

 

The Evolution of Celtic Culture in Ireland

 

They came from a land beyond the sea,

And now o'er the western main

Set sail in their good ships, gallantly,

From the sunny lands of Spain.

"Oh, where's the isle we've seen in dreams,

Our destined home or grave?"

They sang they, as by the morning beams,

They swept the Atlantic wave.

 

- The Coming of the Milesians [The first Celts in Ireland were named Milesians after their leader, Mil.]

Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

 

 

GEOGRAPHY AND IRISH HISTORY

 

      The geography of Ireland played a major role in the preservation of Celtic culture.  On the north-western fringe of the Continent, Ireland was separated from Europe by a span of sea wide enough to make invasion difficult, but narrow enough to allow commerce.  Had it been closer to the European mainland, Roman soldiers could have launched an invasion armada against the Irish Celts.  Had it been further away, the Irish missionaries of the Middle Ages would not have been able to reach the European mainland in their primitive boats.

      This position first played an important part in the preservation of Celtic culture between the 2nd century B.C. and the 1st century A.D., when a relentless tide of war and conquest inundated Celtic civilization on mainland Europe.  During these centuries, the legions of Rome marched into Spain and Gaul; and land-hungry and battle-hardened warriors of Germanic tribes overran the Danube Basin and central Europe.  With their undisciplined style of warfare, the Celts were unable to keep the Romans or Germans from overrunning their lands.  Many of those who did not perish swiftly by the sword lived under the dominance of Roman or Germanic overlords.  Some Celtic survivors of the turmoil on mainland Europe fled to Britain and Ireland in the hope that the islands would offer them sanctuary from Rome.

      These refugees were not the first Celts to reach Ireland.  Celtic clans had migrated there as early as the late Iron Age, about 500 B.C., and established permanent, prosperous communities.  Although far removed from the main centres of Celtic culture on continental Europe, the Irish Celts nonetheless continued to follow the same cultural practices.  The round strongholds they constructed, called ring forts, were similar to forts built by Celtic tribes in north-western Spain and on the Atlantic coast of France.  Brooches and swords discovered by archaeologists in Celtic burial sites in Ireland are like ones found in Celtic burial sites throughout Europe.  There is no agreement on how the first Celts got to Ireland.  There is some archaeological evidence to suggest, however, that they came to Ireland from Spain, after migrating there from Celtic cultural centres in central Europe.  The mythology of the Irish Celts supports this origin too.  The Lebor Gabála - The Book of Invasions which is a medieval compilation of early Irish myths - names Mil as the chieftain of a group of Celts that came from Spain to settle in Ireland in order to escape a famine.  After winning a battle against the Tuatha de Danaan who inhabited Ireland, Mil's people claimed Ireland as their new home.

      The first Celts in Ireland - wherever they came from - maintained contacts with the Celts in mainland Europe by being a part of the trading network among the Celtic settlements.  There is evidence that the Irish Celts traded with cities as distant as Tyre in Phoenicia and Alexandria in Egypt.  In turn, the mainland Celts uprooted by the Romans and Germans were aware of the Celtic communities in Ireland as well as in Britain; and numbers of them saw the distant island as a sanctuary from the warfare and uncertainty of the Continent.

      The influx of Celtic refugees arriving in the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C. helped to concentrated and advance the Celtic culture in Ireland.  After Rome completed its conquest of most of western Europe and after the Celtic tribes already occupying central Europe were overrun by Germanic tribes, Ireland was left as the only place in all of Europe where the original Celtic culture existed and was free to endure and grow largely unaffected by the mixture of Greek, Roman, Mediterranean, Christian and barbarian influences which were determining the nature of mainland European society.  Because of its location on the perimeter of Europe, historical developments elsewhere in Europe inevitably had some effect on Ireland.  Yet because of its remoteness, these developments did not affect the essence of Celtic culture which had taken root in Ireland.

     

 

IRELAND AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE

 

      Because Ireland was not isolated from events occurring on the European continent, the growing power of the distant city of Rome eventually influence the development of Irish Celtic society.  Yet not Roman soldier ever set foot in Ireland and no Roman governor ever made laws for the Irish to live by.  Instead, the effects of Rome on Ireland were indirect, coming about from an exchange of goods and ideas between the Irish and the Celts living in the Roman-occupied lands of Britain and Gaul.

      Because the Celts almost conquered Rome before the city had grown powerful enough to build an Empire, the Romans came to regard the Celts as a threat to their survival.  This experience motivated the Romans to ultimately destroy Celtic culture in western Europe and attempt to conquer all of Celtic Britain.  The first conflict between Romans and Celts occurred in 390 B.C. when Rome sent delegates to the neighbouring Etruscan city of Clusium to mediate a dispute between the Etruscans and a clan of Celts.  Since about 650 B.C. Celtic raiders from the La Tène and Hallstatt regions had threatened the city-states of Italy.  By the time of the confrontation at Clusium, the number of Celts who had migrated into Italy from Switzerland and Austria was large enough to concern both the Etruscans and the Romans.  Because the people of Clusium refused to consider the Celts' demands for land to settle on, the negotiations mediated by the Romans quickly broke down and a skirmish followed between the Etruscans and the Celts.  The Romans joined the brief battle on the side of the Etruscans, angering the Celts with their flagrant violation of neutrality.  Under the leadership of the chieftain Brennius, the army of the Celts abandoned their attack on the Etruscan city of Clusium and marched south to the greater prize of Rome.

      Unable to halt the Celtic advance, the Romans built barricades around the Capitoline Hill to protect the Senate and the Forum.  The Celts entered the city, burning and looting and laying siege to the Capitoline Hill.  For seven months they tried unsuccessfully to defeat the Romans.  Then, after sacking the city, the Celts abruptly departed.  Historians are at a loss to explain the Celts' sudden departure from Rome.  The Roman chronicler Polybius wrote that the withdrawal was due to their concern over the Venetti and Etruscans endangering the Celtic route back to their homeland to the north.  The historian Livy thought the Celts departed because many of them became sick after encamping near the mosquito-infested marshes of the Tiber River.  The devastation wrought upon Rome left the inhabitants of the city with a hatred for the Celts that would fester for centuries.

      For the next 150 years, the enmity between Roman and Celts was intensified by ongoing conflicts between Roman soldiers and the warriors of wandering Celtic clans.  During the Punic Wars of the 2nd century B.C., the Celts of Spain were allies of Carthage, a city on the coast of North Africa which was the rival of Rome for control of the western Mediterranean.  When Hannibal made his famous passage across the Alps to invade Italy and threaten the city of Rome, his troops were mostly Spanish Celts.  After a series of crushing defeats in battle, the Romans fell back to the city of Rome where they were soon besieged by Hannibal and his mostly Celtic army.  Unlike the previous siege in 390 B.C., this time the city was better defended - with a high stone wall encircling it.  Nonetheless, this second siege inevitably recalled for the Romans their earlier humiliation when they had been reduced to cringing in their fabled city while bands of Celtic warriors surrounded them and were free to pillage the countryside.  With Hannibal at their head, Celtic warriors had reopened an old wound.

      This siege of Rome was lifted as mysteriously as the previous siege after the victories of the Roman general Scipio in Spain.  Hannibal abandoned the siege of Rome and departed the Italian peninsula to return to Carthage.  He left no reasons for this sudden departure, but most historians attribute it to the need to defend Carthage from Scipio's armies after the fall of Spain.  With their defeat by Scipio, the Iberian Celts - called Celtiberians by the Romans - were now subjects of the Roman Republic who could be used as soldiers against Carthage.

      Hannibal's withdrawal ended the immediate threat to Rome from the Celtic warriors.  But it did not end Rome's problem with the Celts.  Seeing the prosperous, peaceful Roman colonial provinces along the Mediterranean coast of Gaul (present-day France) as easy targets for raiding parties seeking precious metals, domestic supplies, and slaves, the Celts frequently assaulted the towns and cities.  Occasionally, their raids extended to the cities and farms of northern Italy.  The small Roman military garrisons in these areas were unable to control these raids by the Celts, who would appear suddenly, ravage rich, defenceless targets, and vanish just as suddenly into the wilderness of central Gaul.

      The Celts had been making such raids before the threat to Rome from Hannibal, and they continued making them after the threat ended.  Having twice been humbled by Celtic warriors and having been victorious over their Carthaginian rivals, the Romans were anxious to end the destructive, unsettling raids by the Celts which diminished Roman treasure and terrified Roman subjects.

      In 125 B.C., Rome sent legions into the Rhone Valley to subdue the Celtic tribes bordering Roman territory.  This was just the first step in a long conflict between the Romans and the Celts that would not end until Julius Caesar finally pacified all of Gaul in 56 B.C.  After Caesar's conquest of Gaul, independent Celtic culture in continental Europe was confined to the Danube Basin; but the defeated Celts of Gaul could not flee towards the Danube because of the threat posed by Germanic tribes migrating westward into the lands between the North Sea and Switzerland.

      The Celts of Ireland felt no impact from Roman expansion during the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. when Rome was conquering the Celts of western Europe.  The first indirect effects came in the 1st century B.C. when a trickle of continental Celtic refugees began to arrive at the close of Caesar's campaigns in Gaul.  Grave sites in Gaul excavated by archaeologists indicated that many of the Celtic warriors died in battle.  Survivors and their families faced the choice of submission to Rome or flight to the islands of Britain or Ireland, which was then known as either Hibernia or the North Island.

      After vanquishing the Celts in Gaul and establishing garrisons throughout the territory, Caesar turned his sights to Britain.  As the superior strategist he was, Caesar knew he had to subdue the recently defeated Celtic warriors who had fled to Britain and were likely to return to the mainland to harass Roman forces or raid Roman cities and farms as Celts had done throughout Rome's history.  Caesar desired to have Britain under Roman rule not only because this was a military imperative, but also so he could then be able to return to Rome in triumph to increase his chances of ruling the Eternal City and the far-flung lands he had newly brought into its imperial fold.

      Caesar opened his planned invasion of Britain with a reconnaissance-in-force in 55 B.C.  Having gauged the strength of Celtic resistance, the following year he led a Roman army large enough to defeat the Celts and establish a Roman stronghold which would be the basis for the eventual conquest of the entire island - the pattern which he had followed with success in his campaigns in Gaul.  But Caesar's carefully laid plans were dashed when a storm in the English Channel destroyed many of the ships carrying supplies to his forces which had landed in Britain and at the same time, a rebellion broke out in northern Gaul.  Caesar withdrew his legions from Britain to deal with the uprising in Gaul.  After putting down the revolt, Caesar never returned to finish the conquest of Britain.  When a political crisis developed in Rome, Caesar set off on his famous "crossing of the Rubicon" and the fate that awaited him in the Imperial City.

      Caesar might not have been concerned about attacks from the British Celts.  Without the treat of Roman legions facing them, the British tribes and the Celts who had fled to the island from Gaul could not unite so as to pose any threat to Rome.  The British Celts remained safe from Rome until 42 A.D., when the Emperor Claudius decided the time had come to add Britain to the Roman Empire.  Under the leadership of the Roman general Aulus Plautius, an army of four legions landed near Dover in 43 A.D.  They moved inland and met fierce resistance from a hastily formed alliance of several Celtic clans at a battle near Camolodunum (London), where Celtic champions charged at the Romans in chariots.  But the efficient battle tactics of the Romans eventually prevailed over the undisciplined Celts.  Camolodunum became the main encampment of the Romans from which they succeeded in conquering the southern half of the island.

      Gradually, year by year, campaign by campaign, the Romans increased their British domain.  After Roman legions had conquered almost half of Britain, a rebellion erupted in 61 A.D. led by the Iceni clan who inhabited a territory north-east of London.  They were soon subdued, but the Romans continued to have difficulty in subduing the Celts of Britain, a land far from the Imperial City.  Between 61 and 84 A.D., the forces of Rome continued to press northwards, but never conquered the entire island.  Rome was unwilling to commit the expensive military resources needed to subdue northern Britain, a land the Romans considered too rugged to produce much tribute in any event.  In 119 A.D., the Emperor Hadrian ordered the building of a wall across the border with present-day Scotland, then the home of the warlike Picts.

      The Roman conquests in Britain divided the Celts into two cultural groups.  One group of Celts lived outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire and continued to follow their traditional customs and beliefs.  These Celts lived in Scotland, beyond the northernmost Roman garrisons of Carlisle and Newcastle, and they passed on their enmity for Rome from generation to generation.  The second group of Celts lived within the boundaries of the Empire in the southern part of the island.  These Celts gradually became Romanized by adopting many aspects of Roman culture.

      Because Ireland and Britain were near to each other, traders regularly exchanging goods and information introduced Roman ideas into Ireland.  In addition, sea raiders from Ireland in search of plunder and slaves abducted Romanized Celts from Britain and brought them back to Ireland.  These British-Celtic captives taught the Irish about Roman government, religion and methods of war.  Despite these influences, Ireland remained essentially Celtic during the Roman occupation of Britain, since the Irish could choose which Roman ideas to accept rather than having them imposed on their society by Roman legions.  The Irish borrowed some Roman ideas, such as writing, and adapted them for use in their culture.  But the influence of Roman civilization was not strong enough to disrupt the cultural continuity of the Celts in Ireland, who were the only Celts following a way of life that had vanished in continental Europe.

 

 

CHRISTIANITY COMES TO IRELAND

 

      As the Roman world gradually embraced Christianity, the Celts inevitably came in contact with the new religion.  Christianity was introduced to Ireland by British traders, adventurers and missionaries who crossed the Irish Sea, and by captives brought back to Ireland by raiders.  During the early medieval period, Christianity had a profound effect on the development of Celtic culture in Ireland.

      The earliest Christian symbols in Britain have been dated from 315 A.D., about the time that the Emperor Constantine sanctioned the public practice of the religion throughout the Empire.  The Venerable Bede, an eighth-century Saxon historian, claimed in his Opera Historica that Christians worshipped secretly in Britain from the 1st century A.D.  Bede wrote that the faithful practised their rituals in the "forests ... or secret dens".  Despite the laws against Christianity, the religion took root in Britain and developed a widespread following.

      Just how and when Christianity took root in Ireland is not known.  The use of Latin-derived words for aspects of Christianity in the Irish language by the beginning of the 5th century indicates that Christianity was having an effect on Celtic culture by this time.  The Irish word caplait for Holy Thursday was derived from capitalavium, the word that Latin-speaking Christians used for Holy Thursday.  Peccatum, the Latin word for sin, became the Irish peccath, which also meant sin.  Irish ortha, or prayer, was derived from Latin oratio.  These words demonstrate the presence of Christianity in Ireland during the time when Rome occupied Britain.

      In most European lands, the arrival of Christian missionaries sparked religious conflict when pagan spiritual leaders tried to maintain their dominance over societies against the growing influence of the new religion.  But in Ireland, there was little conflict between Druids and Christians.  Because of their tolerance for other points of view, the Druids did not use their influence to stifle Christian missionaries.  Legend claims that the 6th century Welsh Druid Teliesin spoke for all Druids when he said, "In Asia Christ was a new thing.  But there was not a time when the Druids held not his belief."  Celtic Druids and Christian missionaries focused on the similarities of their beliefs, not the differences.  During the 4th and 5th centuries, Christian and Druid beliefs gradually blended to form a distinctive version of the Christian religion which incorporated many aspects of Celtic culture into its practices and doctrines.  Since most Irish saw no distinction between priest and Druid, the converts to the new religion viewed the Christian clergy as the philosophers, physicians and law-givers of their society, just as they had viewed the Druids.  This hybrid religion, which came to be called Celtic Christianity by modern historians, continued to thrive in Ireland during most of the medieval period and was carried to mainland Europe by Irish monks.

 

 

ST. PATRICK

 

      Folklore has enshrined a 5th century Christian bishop named Patrick as the person who converted the Irish to the new religion.  But in reality, he was not as successful as legends which sprang up around him in the 7th century portray him to be.  While he did convert many Irish Celts to Christianity, his influence was in fact limited because the Irish resisted as too rigid the doctrines and administrative structures of Roman Christianity which Patrick tried to impose on them along with the spirituality of Christianity.

      Patrick was born in western Britain about 418 A.D., in a time when the power of Rome was waning.  In 401 A.D., the Emperor Honorius ordered the bulk of the Roman military forces in Britain to Gaul to help defend it from hordes of Visigoths who had crossed the Rhine River.  Only a few years later, in 405 A.D., the Emperor lost control of Britain when the Roman soldiers stationed there named several of their own officers as candidates to be the Emperor of Rome; although they lacked the means to enforce their claim.  By 410 A.D., with the Empire crumbling, Honorius abandoned Britain by decreeing that he would no longer send troops to Britain for its defence if the Scottish or Irish Celts attacked Roman lands.  To add to the uncertainty facing the Roman colonists and Romanized Celts of southern Britain at the time of Patrick's birth, Irish raids along the coastline had increased.  Some Celtic chieftains had even gone so far as to establish permanent military outposts in Wales and Cornwall.

      Patrick was captured by raiders of the Irish clan chieftain Milchu near modern Dumbarton on the Clyde River and brought to Ireland.  For the next six years, he laboured for Milchu's clan as a captive shepherd.  Being already a devout Christian, Patrick prayed daily for deliverance from his pagan captors.  According to legend, he escaped when a divine voice in the night directed him to Gaul, where he studied for the priesthood.  In 461 A.D. he returned to Ireland as a missionary consecrated as a bishop by Bishop Amatorex of Gaul especially for his task of converting the Irish.

      To move freely throughout Ireland and perform his missionary work, Patrick had to obtain permission from the High King of Ireland, named Laeghire.  So the first thing Patrick did when he arrived in Ireland was to go to Laeghire's court at Tara to present himself and request the High King's permission to do his work.  At this time, Christian values and practices had hardly any impact on Celtic culture.  In keeping with the Roman Christian practice of humility, when Patrick went to present himself to King Laeghire, he wore plain and simple clothing.  But this was the wrong thing to do to make a favourable impression on the King.  The Irish Celts looked at clothing as a measure of a person's status.  The King and the members of his court mocked Patrick when he appeared before them in his plain garments, and Patrick was unable to continue petitioning the King for permission to preach in Ireland.  To obtain sufficient status for his appearance before the King which was necessary if Patrick was going to do his work in Ireland, Patrick make gifts of gold and silver to prominent people at the court; and he hired a band of warriors to accompany him for his next appearance to make a display of power which would impress Laeghire.  This time, Laeghire gave Patrick permission to preach and try to make Christian converts in Ireland.

      King Laeghire had heard of the Christian religion before Patrick's arrival, but he was not particularly interested in Patrick's religious ideas.  It was in keeping with the Irish tradition of tolerance for the free exchange of ideas that he gave permission for Patrick to preach wherever he chose.

      Patrick went north to the citadel of Emain Mhacha, the seat of power of Clan Uliad in Ulster, and established a church near the present-day town of Armagh.  In this part of Ireland, Christianity was unknown; and he was able to convert some warriors and bondservants to form his first congregation.  Patrick consecrated as bishops some of his more devout followers so that he could institute a Roman Christian administrative system of dioceses.  The Celts at the time found this system excessively rigid for their pastoral communities.  During the late medieval period, the Bishops of Armagh claimed ecclesiastical leadership over all Irish Christians based on succession from Patrick - a claim which other Irish Christians rejected.

      While folklore praised Patrick and his deeds, it also portrayed him as a dogmatic man whose intolerant behaviour went against the Irish Celtic tradition of eclectic scholarship.  Although St. Patrick lived in the 5th century, it was not until the 8th century, when Roman Christianity began to gain acceptance in Ireland, that a large number of legends grew around his life.  One of the best known of these is about Patrick's banishing the snakes from Ireland.  The origin of this legend is believed to be the connection between the Viking word for toad - paug - and Patrick's Irish name - Pádraig (pronounced paw-rig).  It was the Vikings who first assumed that Patrick had received his name because he had miraculously ridded Ireland of snakes as well as toads and other reptiles.  But the folklore and legends concerning Patrick go much beyond this well-known tale.  Many of these were based on the Life of Pádraig, a book written by Muirchú in the 7th century A.D. that portrayed Patrick more as a Druid than a Christian bishop.  The book filled in the gaps in Patrick's own autobiography, the Confesio, with fantastic occurrences for the time after his escape to Gaul when Patrick claimed he was wandering in a "desert".  Muirchú claimed it was a real place where strange beasts and miraculous events were commonplace.  The book blended many aspects of Celtic mythology with Christian doctrine.  One such tale tells how Patrick shape-shifted into the form of a deer to escape pursuit by bandits.  The popularity of The Life of Pádraig helped to make Patrick pre-eminent over all the saints of Ireland.

      Although Patrick did not convert large numbers of Irish to Christianity as he had hoped for, the lore which grew up around his life and his activities in Ireland had a strong impact on Irish Christians of later centuries.  When the rivalry between Roman and Celtic Christians intensified during the Middle Ages, the Roman Christians adopted Patrick and made him the patron saint of Ireland to advance their version of Christianity among the Celts.  This pre-eminent position of Patrick among the Irish continued into the modern era.  In the 16th century, when Irish Catholics were prompted to find a symbol for the religious and political freedoms they sought under English domination, St. Patrick was the natural choice.  This attachment of the Irish to St. Patrick was carried by the Irish émigrés to the various countries of Europe.  For the Irish émigrés, St. Patrick's Day was not only a religious celebration, but also an affirmation of their Irish heritage and culture.  While Patrick had only limited success towards his goal of converting all of Ireland in his lifetime, in later centuries, the memory of him embellished by legend exerted an incalculable effect on the religious, political and cultural development of Ireland.  Even today, St. Patrick is virtually synonymous with Ireland.

 

 

MONASTICISM AND CELTIC CHRISTIANITY

 

      Although Patrick is commonly given most of the credit for conversion of Ireland to Christianity, this was accomplished primarily by Irish monks after Patrick's death in the late 5th century.  These monks were involved in the monastic movement originating in the Near East and introduced to Europe in France by Martin of Tours, a 4th century Roman soldier who became a monk after serving with the Roman legions on the Hungarian border.  The strict religious ideal followed by the Near Eastern and European monks became known in Ireland through a manuscript named The Life of Martin which favourably described the regimen of the monks in their monasteries.

      The first monastery in the British Isles where a community of monks could follow this ascetic way of life was at Whithorn, a place in Strathclyde in north-west Britain.  The monastery was founded in the early 5th century by the monk Ninian after he met with Martin of Tours while stopping at Martin's monastery on his way back to Britain after visiting Rome.  Legend has it that Martin lent Ninian stonemasons to build his monastery.  Ninian's monastery helped to establish Christianity in the British Isles, and served as a model for the founding of similar monasteries in Ireland from which Christianity spread with surprising success.  As greater numbers of Irish were converted, the number of Irish desiring to follow the monastic life also grew, so that within a hundred and fifty years there were scores of monasteries scattered throughout Ireland.

      The idea of a man or woman who abandoned hearth and kin to battle with the desires of their bodies in a struggle for perfection appealed to the Irish notion of the heroic.  In pre-Christian mythology, Celtic heroes would often enter spiritual realms to struggle with supernatural forces in a quest for wisdom.  The Christian monks believed that the internal spiritual conflict emphasized in the ascetic ideal was another form of the heroic quest found in Celtic mythology.  The monks of Ireland drew inspiration from these legends and myths, viewing themselves as spiritual warriors who followed a path similar to the one once trod by traditional heroes.

      In the early 5th century, the monks modelled their regimen of the strict asceticism of the monasteries of Egypt and Gaul.  They shut themselves away from the world to devote themselves to purely spiritual matters.  On the windswept Atlantic islands of Skellig Michael and Inishboffin, ascetics fasted and prayed in a life of voluntary hardship which would merit them eternal salvation at the end of their lives.  They sought perfection in a daily battle with the urges of their bodies.  A Celtic monk named Faustus summarized this monastic ideal in an essay entitled De Gratia where he wrote:

 

"It is not for quiet and security that we have formed a community in the monastery, but for a struggle and a conflict.  We have met here for a contest.  We have embarked on a war against our sins.... The struggle upon which we are engaged is full of hardships, full of dangers, for it is a struggle of man against himself."

 

      During the 5th century A.D., many of the Irish monks turned the focus of their concern from themselves to the spiritual and physical welfare of the communities beyond the walls of their cloisters.  The traditions of the Irish Celts placed monks in the position formerly occupied by the áes-dana, the Druids who gave spiritual guidance to people.  The Irish Christians who had not chosen the monastic life expected that the monks would interact with them on a regular basis, providing the leadership once provided by the Druids.  This tradition stimulated the monks to abandon their solitary quest for perfection and leave the confines of their monasteries to act as teachers and healers for the entire Christian community.  By this time, much of Irish Christian life and culture centred around the monks who instructed the young, healed the sick, and dispensed justice.

      From the example of the Druids, the Irish monks realized that knowledge was the key factor to their influence and prestige in their society.  The Christian communities also recognized that the education of the monks made them valuable members of society.  This appreciation of the benefits of education inspired the monks to establish schools in the monasteries.  By the close of the 6th century A.D., monks could learn the fundamentals of reading, writing and philosophy in their local monasteries; and they could study agriculture, mathematics and astronomy at the larger monasteries at Whithorn, Bangor and Moville.

      Although all branches of Christianity accepted the Gospels, the practices and doctrines of the Celtic Christians emphasized aspects of the religion different from those emphasized by the Roman Christians who were becoming the dominant Christian sect in Europe during the early medieval period.  In general, the Celts focused on Christianity spiritually while the Roman Christians stressed sin and the redemptive aspect of the religion.  In Ireland, the few Celts who followed the Roman version of the religion did not have sufficient power and authority to dictate doctrine and ritual to their neighbours.

      When Celtic Christian monks travelled to continental Europe, however, they often became embroiled in disputes with Roman Christians over the fine points of doctrine.  One of these disputes concerned the ideas of the Celtic theologian Pelagius who emigrated from either Ireland or Britain to Rome, where he lived between 380 and 410 A.D.  The foundation of Pelagius' theological and moral ideas was the belief that human beings were entirely responsible for the good or evil in their lives.  This foundation led to Pelagius's belief that perfection was attainable by both individuals and society; and for him, the pursuit of perfection was a person's chief moral obligation.

      The relationship of Pelagius's ideas about human nature and morality to the Celtic spirit of independence and also the rigorous, ascetic life of the early Irish monks is evident.  But Pelagius's ideas which were embraced by the Irish variation of Christianity conflicted directly with those of Augustine of Hippo, who was the leading theologian of the time.  In was Augustine's theological ideas which were approved by the authorities in Rome and taught by the followers of the Roman variation of Christianity across Europe.  Fundamentals of Augustine's theological ideas were the concept of original sin and grace from God.  For Augustine, human beings were naturally sinful because they were born with original sin; and they could overcome this flaw only with God's intervention in the form of grace.

      When Pelagius recorded his ideas in a book called On Faith, he was denounced by the clergy in Rome who followed Augustine's doctrines.  In 410 A.D., Pelagius fled to Africa and settled near the city of Hippo where Augustine was bishop.  Angered by Pelagius's arrival in Africa, Augustine called the Council of Carthage to condemn Pelagius as a heretic and ban his teachings.  This decision prompted Pelagius to flee again, this time to Jerusalem where a specially convened synod reversed the decision of the Council of Carthage.  After this synod in Jerusalem, no further record exists of Pelagius's activities.  But the doctrinal controversy he inspired continued to rage among Roman Christians until 494 A.D. when Pope Gelasius I placed On Faith on the Index of Forbidden Books and condemned Pelagius's teachings as heresy.  The Celtic Christians, however, continued to accept Pelagius's doctrines.

      During the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., incorporating the teachings of Pelagius into their beliefs, the Celtic Christians accepted personal responsibility for improving their own spiritual condition as well as the spiritual condition of others.  In addition, they also recognized that most people were not ascetics.  Because the Celts believed that the Gospels, along with their own cultural traditions, should dictate the nature of Christian doctrine, they rejected the ideas of Augustine that either supplemented scripture or did not conform to Celtic customs.  However, Augustine's teachings about grace and original sin became a fundamental part of the Roman version of Christianity, sparking many disputes between Roman and Celtic Christian theologians during the Middle Ages.  When logical arguments failed them, the Roman Christians often resorted to name-calling such as Jerome's description of Pelagius as "a great mountain-dog through whom the devil barks" who was "full of Irish porridge".

      The Celtic Christians were far more tolerant of different religious doctrines and beliefs than the Roman Christians.  This tolerance gave Celtic Christianity the capacity to graft traditional Celtic ideas such as Druid shape-shifting onto Christian teachings.  Because the principle of shape-shifting was a part of the essence of pre-Christian Celtic spirituality, incorporating it into Christianity helped the new religion gain rapid acceptance.  Long before Christianity arose in Ireland, Druid shamen had been performing a ceremony during which they would go into a trance-like state where they saw themselves as entering the bodies of animals or other persons.  The Celts believed that this communion with other living beings of the universe brought about a greater wisdom for those who could engage in it.  As the shamen adapted to Christianity, they taught that Christ was a divine shape-shifter - a god whose spirit had entered a human being.  This understanding of Christ enabled Irish Celts to readily embrace Christianity by expressing profound and often perplexing mysteries of Christ's nature in terms of a spiritual principle the Celts had been long familiar with.

      In the western mountains of Kerry and Donegal, large pockets of pagan belief endured throughout the Middle Ages.  As late as the 13th century, the English geographer Gerald Cambrensis commented on the widespread non-Christian practices and rituals that he encountered in western Ireland.  He was especially shocked when he observed a newly-elected clan chieftain publicly copulating with a white mare in a ceremony for making him leader of the clan.  Pagan practices existing side-by-side with Christianity exemplified the Celtic tolerance of different types of spirituality and customs of different cultures.  This tolerance kept differences over religious issues from leading to the civil and religious strife which occurred in many European countries.  The tolerance also enabled the Irish monks to perform their missionary work effectively; and it was a trait that enabled Irish émigrés down the generations to ease their way into their new societies.

      The formation of Celtic Christianity to meet the spiritual needs of the Celts was not an accident resulting from historical or geographical isolation, but instead evolved from a series of choices made by the Celts.  The Celtic priests and monks of the 4th and 5th centuries were aware of other versions of Christianity from their regular travels to mainland Europe to attend councils and synods.  At these assemblies, they argued heatedly with Roman and Arian Christian theologians about acceptable variations in practices and doctrines.  Although the Romans and Arians often described the Celts as obstinate, the decision of the Celts to follow their own version of Christianity was a reflection of the tolerance and other unique characteristics of their society.  The Celts believed that no outside authority had the right to dictate how they should structure their church and which beliefs should receive official approval.  Like legal and political matters, religious matters were governed by clan consensus.

      Because many monks became uncomfortable with their high status in Irish communities after leaving the walls of their monasteries, they developed the idea of the peregrinatio pro Christo, the journey for the sake of Christ.  This lent religious purpose to the traditional Celtic urge to wander.  The peregrinatio was a journey away from friends and family to preach the new religion to strangers in another part of Ireland.  But once Ireland became largely Christian, the monks who made the peregrinatio were revered and welcomed in most parts of the land.  Their very success in converting the Irish to Christianity made them holy wisemen whose opinion was sought on all matters.  Early law tracts indicated that they had status equal to a king.

      This recognition granted to the monks ran against the ascetic ideals they saw as their primary calling.  Not wishing to be in surroundings where they might be tempted by the sin of pride, however remote this might be for them, the monks expanded the concept of the peregrinatio to include lands outside of Ireland.  In the late 6th century, the concept of the peregrinatio evolved into the notion of White Martyrdom, a way to gain the spiritual rewards of martyrdom without being put to death.  To become a White Martyr, monks had to leave Ireland with no intention of returning.  In place of being put to death for their beliefs, they would suffer the pangs of loss for the friends and kin they would never see again.  During the early medieval period, White Martyrdom became the motive for Irish emigration, a new stimulus for the traditional instinct of Celts to migrate.

      Because of the equal status of men and women among Celtic Christians in Ireland, women were not barred by social custom from becoming White Martyrs.  But they usually chose not to voyage abroad.  Although Christian women in Ireland often lived in the same cloistered monasteries with monks and could become the spiritual leaders of them, they knew the difficulties that a wandering woman ascetic would have in the patriarchies of mainland Europe.  No matter how wise their words, women would be met with scorn and disdain.  Swords and daggers were forbidden by their Christian principles, so they could not protect themselves if they were attacked by soldiers or brigands.  For Celtic women in the early Middle Ages, a peregrinatio pro Christo in mainland Europe must have seemed more certain to result in a martyrdom that was red instead of white.

      The Celtic concept of the White Martyr was not found in other versions of Christianity.  In the lands around the Mediterranean, only Red Martyrs who died in pain for their beliefs could be assured of salvation.  The White Martyr reflected the Celtic Christian belief that human beings could effectively strive towards perfection in this world.  The Roman Christians rejected the idea that perfection was attainable, preferring to adopt the view of human nature found in Augustine of Hippo's doctrine of grace and original sin.  When Irish monks arrived on the European continent, this difference in essential doctrine became a constant source of conflict between Celtic and Roman Christian theologians.  But the attacks against the Irish Celts launched by Roman Christian bishops and scholars had little effect on the great majority of Europeans, who did not have the literacy or education to fully understand the fine points of Christian doctrine.  The ordinary Europeans accepted the Celtic monks as wise and holy visitors with a great deal to offer to their adopted lands.

 

 

 

COLUMCILLE OF IONA

 

      The foremost of the early White Martyrs was an abbot named Columcille.  He was born a member of the royal family of Leinster, clan ó Donnell, in Donegal in 521 A.D.  He founded his first monastery in Derry in 545 A.D. when he was only 24; and according to legend, he founded 300 more before he was 40 years old.  Columcille's pathway into Irish legend as one of the first White Martyrs began with his taking liberties with a Vulgate Bible of Jerome that he borrowed from the Abbot of Moville, named Finian.  In the middle of the night, Columcille copied this Bible unbeknownst to its owner, the Abbot.  When Finian learned of this, he complained to Dermot, the High King of Ireland at the time.  Dermot summoned Columcille to appear before him at Tara, the site of his throne.  When Columcille did so, Dermot made the pronouncement, "to each cow her calf, to each book its copy", and ordered Columcille to give Finian the copy of the Bible he had made.  Columcille rejected Dermot's ruling with the rejoinder "The wrong decision of a judge is a raven's call to battle."

      Dermot could not allow such a brazen, direct rejection of his authority to go unchallenged.  After dismissing Columcille, Dermot sent warriors to seize the copy of the Bible.  But Columcille was intent on resisting Dermot's ruling further.  He  gathered warriors of his clan ó Donnell to prevent Dermot's warriors from taking his Bible.  The two opposing forces met at Cùl Dreimne in a conflict which became known as The Battle of the Books.  Columcille won the battle - but in subsequent events he came out the loser in this disagreement with Dermot.  Disturbed by Columcille's lawlessness leading to so much bloodshed between Irish Christians, the abbots of Ireland called the Synod of Teltown in 561 A.D. to decide upon an appropriate punishment for Columcille.  The ultimate punishment of excommunication was being urged by many abbots when Columcille's friend, Brendan of Birr, appeared before the Synod to plead on Columcille's behalf for the lesser punishment of exile.  The abbots relented, allowing Columcille to remain in the Church and thus eventually be recognized as a prominent and influential White Martyr.

      Columcille left Ireland with twelve of his followers in 563 A.D.  They set off from north-east Ireland in coracles, small boats made of none and hide.  Columcille had no particular destination in mind for himself and his followers.  Once away from Ireland out in the Irish Sea, he left his course in the hands of God.  The tides carried the coracles to Iona, a small island off the western coast of Scotland which had once been the site of a Druid school.  Columcille decided to build a monastery there.

      Iona was part of the kingdom of the Celtic clan named Dal Riada, Irish immigrants who had fled to the Argyll coast of Scotland after a famine in the early part of the 6th century A.D.  The Irish clan chieftains of Munster claimed annual tribute from the Scottish colony, using the threat of invasion to extract payment.  Although the Dal Riadans bridled at their political subservience, when Columcille arrived in Scotland the Dal Riadan king Connell nevertheless grudgingly allowed the Irish monks to stay on the island of Iona because he assumed that a new monastery would benefit his realm.  After Columcille established his monastery, he regularly intervened in the politics of the Dal Riadans.  When Connell died, it was Columcille who crowned the new king, Aeden the Wily.

      Involved as he became in the politics of the Dal Riadans, Columcille wished to see an end to the annual tribute the Dal Riadans paid to the Irish clan chieftains.  The Convention of Drumceat convened by the High King in 575 A.D. gave him a chance to try to accomplish this.  Conventions were meetings of many clan chieftains to decide on political and legal issues which had arisen since the previous Convention.  In 575 at the Convention of Drumceat the chieftains were to consider the matter of the Dal Riadan independence which would bring to an end the annual tribute.  Columcille ignored the sentence of exile which had been imposed on him to attend this Convention as King Aeden's representative.  He successfully argued for granting independence to the Dal Riadans and ending the tribute.

      After later generations came to view Columcille as a model for all White Martyrs, his attendance at the Convention of Drumceat posed a problem.  Since the gathering was held in Ireland, Columcille's attendance was a flagrant violation of his sentence of perpetual exile.  To justify his return to Ireland with the ideal of the White Martyr, an ingenious folktale claimed that an angel named Axal granted Columcille dispensation from his vows in order to temporarily return to Ireland.  Another tale recounted that he kept his face buried in his cowl so he looked at no former friends or kinfolk from his native land; and yet another, that he tied clods of Scottish turf to his sandals so he never actually set foot on Irish soil.

      The adventures of Columcille became legendary in his own day.  Every monk desired to imitate the great Abbot of Iona by embarking on a heroic foreign quest to gain salvation by spreading the Christian religious message.  Glossing over the fact that Columcille was more or less forced into exile for his arrogant behaviour, the monks and other Irish thought of him as a glorious White Martyr, a wanderer in foreign lands.  As Ireland became predominantly Christian at the close of the 6th century, the example of Columcille spawned a wave of Irish monks crossing the seas to mainland Europe.