Englishmen, and Cashel had a mixture of Irish and
Englishmen. Another divisive issue concerned the pri-
macy of Armagh; Dublin was ultimately successful in
withholding its recognition of Armagh’s primacy, while
Cashel unsuccessfully attempted a similar policy.
An accompanying feature of Church reform was
enthusiasm for the new religious orders, and the Cis-
tercians flourished in the twelfth century under the
guidance of St. Malachy, who is the most important
figure in the reorganization of Irish monasticism. By
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, the
Cistercian order was largely decadent in Ireland. In
contrast, the mendicant orders came to thrive and the
Augustinians remained active. Such religious com-
munities were unaffected by the dissolution of the
monasteries under Henry VIII, and this circumstance
provided an environment in which Roman Catholicism
was able to survive the Reformation in the West of
Ireland.
JOHN REUBEN DAVIES
References and Further Reading
Charles-Edwards, T. M. Early Christian Ireland. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Corish, Patrick J., ed. The Christian Mission (A History of Irish
Catholicism, Vol 1:3). Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972.
Etchingham, Colmán. Church Organisation in Ireland A.D. 650
to 1000. Maynooth: Laigin Publications, 1999.
Gwynn, Aubrey. In The Irish Church in the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries, edited by Gerard O’Brien. Dublin: Four Courts
Press, 1992.
Hughes, Kathleen. The Church in Early Irish Society. London:
Methuen, 1966.
Kenney, James F. Sources for the Early History of Ireland: Vo l
- Ecclesiastical. New York: Columbia University Press,
Mooney, Canice. The Church in Gaelic Ireland: Thirteenth to
Fifteenth Centuries. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1969.
Reeves, William. Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor
and Dromore. Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1847.
Sharpe, Richard. “Churches and Communities in Early Medi-
eval Ireland.” In Pastoral Care before the Parish, edited by
John Blair and Richard Sharpe. Leicester: Leicester Univer-
sity Press, 1992.
. “Some Problems Concerning the Organization of the
Church in Early Medieval Ireland’. Peritia: Journal of the
Medieval Academy of Ireland3 (1984): 230−270.
Sheehy, M. P. When the Normans Came to Ireland. Cork: Mer-
cier Press, 1975.
Watt, J. A. The Church and the Two Nations in Medieval Ireland.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
.The Church in Medieval Ireland (The Gill History of
Ireland, Vol 5). Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1972.
See alsoCanon Law; Church Reform,
Twelfth Century; Christianity, Conversion to;
Ecclesiastical Settlements; Palladius; Patrick;
Racial and Cultural Conflict; Religious
Orders; Túath
ECCLESIASTICAL SETTLEMENTS
In early medieval Ireland, larger ecclesiastical settle-
ments were the main centers of population and it is a
subject of debate whether the more important of these
should or should not be classed as towns. In terms of
scale alone, settlements such as Armagh, Clonmacnoise
and Kells, County Meath, were certainly large enough
by the eleventh/twelfth centuries to qualify as towns,
even if they served a different primary function.
Calling many of these sites monasteries gives the
modern reader a wrong impression of a single-sex
community entirely devoted to religion and subsis-
tence farming and living within an enclosure that has
only monastic buildings. Many of these sites did have
monks and nuns and the buildings associated with
them, but there was generally also a large dependent
community with ecclesiastical families, servants,
monastic tenants, craftsmen and other workers, traders,
and so forth. Large examples of these sites could be
seen as monastic towns with the principal ecclesiasti-
cal elements at the core. Also, many of these sites did
not have any monastic community and were proprieto-
rial or dependent churches, but they could still have
an associated settlement.Historical Evidence
Various buildings associated with the ecclesiastical
core such as the tech mór(great house), proindtech
(refectory),cucann(kitchen), the abbot’s house, and
the guest house or enclosure are mentioned in histor-
ical sources. Because all of these buildings as well as
the huts or cells of the monks were built of perishable
materials, they have not survived. Even when churches
were commonly built of mortared stone in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, the other buildings continued to
be built of timber or post and wattle. On the west coast
and islands, some smaller ecclesiastical sites and ere-
mitical monasteries were built of dry stone from about
the ninth century (mostly they were built of timber in
the earlier period), and remains of cells and other
structures survive as well as the church or oratory.
However, the interpretation of the buildings is difficult,
even when excavated, and the validity of comparing
these small sites with the large ecclesiastical sites is
open to question. The gate of the enclosure, sometimes
calleddoras na cille, is mentioned on occasion, but
only one gate structure survives: the masonry gatehouse
at Glendalough, with its two arches and antae (see
Ecclesiastical Sites). The area to the west of the main
church appears to have been the platea, or main open
space and gathering place within the ecclesiastical core.
The main high crosses and round tower are usually
within or on the edge of this area, and patterns haveECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION