CHURCH REFORM, TWELFTH CENTURYperhaps offer the most satisfactory explanation for
Patrick’s otherwise inexplicable silence about the work
of others before him on the Christian mission in Ireland.
An earlier missionary period for Patrick would also
account for the presence in Ireland of Christians before
431, those “Irish believing in Christ” to whom Palla-
dius was sent as first bishop. Certain expressions in
Patrick’s writings would seem to add weight to this
surmise, since he appears to be writing at a time when
the Roman presence is still all-pervasive in his native
Britain. On the other hand, the more “traditional” dat-
ing of his career (arrival in 432, death in 461 or 493),
runs up against the difficulty that the Roman legions
had long since departed the “Saxon shore” and left
Britain a prey to Anglo-Saxon invaders. Since Patrick
makes no mention of these cataclysmic events, it seems
reasonable to infer that his silence on the subject is
due to the fact that he had left his native home long
before the Anglo-Saxon occupation of Britain.
Palladius’s mission left nothing like the same impres-
sion on the Irish historical mind as Patrick’s did, and yet
there are occasional traces of a transitional period during
which Christianity was still finding its feet, not yet
securely established as the “national” religion. In fact, that
was probably not to be the case until the late sixth or early
seventh century, at the earliest. The first phase of mis-
sionary activity is represented, for example, by a remark-
able survival: a list of the days of the week in a mixture
of Irish and Latin, a witness to the first faltering attempts
by Irish Christians to adapt to the new concepts intro-
duced by the Roman religion. This phase of conversion
is evident also in the fact that the earliest Christian vocab-
ulary used by Irish converts simply recycled the termi-
nology of the older native beliefs. Thus the Irish terms
for “God,” “belief,” “faith,” “grace,” and so on are all words
used to express similar concepts in the pre-Christian reli-
gion. We know next to nothing about the progress of
Christianity in Ireland in the fifth century, and Patrick
himself refers only once (and that disparagingly) to native
Irish practices of sun-worship “and other abominations,”
but he does not elaborate. In time, of course, the newer
religion was to replace the earlier one entirely, but not
before the latter had left an indelible mark on the Irish
Christian mind. How much of the new Irish Christian
religion was due to the activities of Palladius and his con-
tinental comrades, and how much to Patrick and the
efforts of later British clergy, is difficult to judge. The
evidence, such as it is, seems to indicate that the British
influence in the longer term was the stronger of the two.
No document from the Palladian mission has survived,
whereas Patrick’s two writings became the foundation for
a body of legends that turned the humble Briton into an
all-powerful, conquering Christian warrior who wiped
out paganism and converted the Irish people single-
handed. In the process of this reinvention, however, the
true character of the man was sacrificed for the purpose
of creating a mythological figure whose “heroic” deeds
formed the basis for outlandish claims made by Irish
churchmen in the centuries after him. When Patrick
emerges into the light of history again in 632, in the
famous Paschal letter of Cummian, he is there referred
to as sanctus Patricius (the holy Patrick) papa noster(our
father)—the earliest indication we have that Patrick
enjoyed a special status in the Irish Church by that time.
DÁIBHÍÓ CRÓINÍNReferences and Further Reading
Binchy, D. A. “Patrick and His Biographers, Ancient and Mod-
ern.” Studia Hibernica2 (1962): 7–173.
Ó Cróinín, D. Early Medieval Ireland.London: Longman, 1995,
pp. 14–40.
Thompson, E. A. Who Was Saint Patrick?Woodbridge: Boydell,
1985.
See alsoArmagh; Armagh, Book of; Art,
Early Christian; Biblical and Church Fathers
Scholarship; Classical Influence; Ecclesiastical
Organization; Ecclesiastical Settlements;
Ecclesiastical Sites; Inscriptions; Muirchú;
Palladius; Patrick; Pre-Christian Ireland; TírechánCHURCH REFORM, TWELFTH
CENTURY
Apart from the Hiberno-Norse towns of Dublin and
Waterford, the church in Ireland lacked a permanent
diocesan structure in the eleventh century. The reason
for this is largely to be found in the fact that Ireland
was never part of the Roman Empire and thus lacked
the administrative structure upon which the western
church elsewhere based its organization. The circum-
stances surrounding the foundation of the diocese of
Dublin early in the century are obscure, but Dublin
would later play an important role in the events sur-
rounding the introduction of a new diocesan system
for the church throughout the whole country.Canterbury and the Irish Church
Shortly after the Norman conquest of England in 1066
a controversy arose between Canterbury and York over
how the primacy of the Church of England should be
interpreted. From documentation associated with this
we get our first evidence that the new archbishop of
Canterbury, Lanfranc, believed that Ireland as well as
York was subject to the primacy of Canterbury. Two
years later, in 1074, a vacancy occurred in the see of
Dublin and its new bishop, Gilla-Pátraic (or Patrick),
was consecrated in London by Lanfranc. From evi-
dence associated with this we get an insight into how
Lanfranc planned to exercise his claimed primacy over