their well-established Continental links, ally themselves
with the forces of Counter Reformation Catholicism.
COLMÁNN. Ó CLABAIGH
References and Further Reading
Bradshaw, Brendan. The Dissolution of the Religious Orders in
Ireland under Henry VIII. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1974.
Cotter, Francis. The Friars Minor in Ireland from their Arrival
to 1400. New York: Franciscan Institute Publications, 1994.
Flynn, Thomas S. The Irish Dominicans, 1536-1641. Dublin:
Four Courts Press, 1994.
Gwynn, Aubrey, and R. Neville Hadcock. Medieval Religious
Houses: Ireland. London: Longman, 1970 [reprint, Dublin:
Irish Academic Press, 1988].
Hall, Dianne. Women and the Church in Medieval Ireland, c.
1140-1540. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003.
Kinsella, Stuart, ed. Augustinians at Christ Church: The Canons
Regular of the Cathedral Priory of the Holy Trinity, Dublin.
Dublin: Christ Church Cathedral Publications, 2000.
Mac Niocaill, Gearóid. Na Manaigh Liatha in Éirinn, 1142–
c. 1600. Dublin: Cló Morainn, 1959.
Martin, Francis Xavier. “The Augustinian Friaries in pre-
Reformation Ireland.” Augustiniana, 6 (1956): 346−384.
. “The Irish Augustinian Reform Movement in the Fif-
teenth Century.” In Medieval Studies Presented to Aubrey
Gwynn, S. J., edited by J. A. Watt, J. B. Morall, and F. X.
Martin. Dublin: The Three Candles, 1961.
Ó Clabaigh, Colmán N. The Franciscans in Ireland, 1400–1534.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002.
. “Preaching in Late-medieval Ireland: The Franciscan
contribution.” In Irish preaching: 700-1700, edited by Alan
J. Fletcher and Raymond Gillespie. Dublin: Four Courts
Press, 2001.
Ó Conbhuidhe, Colmcille. Studies in Irish Cistercian History.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.
.The Story of Mellifont. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son,
1958.
O’Dwyer, Barry. “The Problem of Reform in the Irish Cister-
cian Monasteries and the Attempted Solution of Stephen of
Lexington in 1228.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 15
(1964): 186−191.
O’Dwyer, Peter. The Irish Carmelites. Dublin: Carmelite Pub-
lications, 1988.
Stalley, Roger. The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland. London
and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
Watt , John. The Church in Medieval Ireland. Dublin: University
College Dublin Press, 1998.
See alsoAbbeys; Anglo-Norman Invasion; Annals
and Chronicles; Annals of the Four Masters;
Architecture; Bermingham; Black Death; Bruce,
Edward; Christ Church Cathedral; Church
Reform, Twelfth Century; Devotional and
Liturgical; Ecclesiastical Organization;
Ecclesiastical Settlements; Education; Fitzralph,
Richard; Fraternities and Guilds; Gaelic Revival;
Hagiography and Martyrologies; Henry II; Kells,
Synod of; Malachy (Máel M’áedoic); Military
Orders; Moral and Religious Instruction; Nuns;
Papacy; Racial and Cultural Conflict; Scots,
Scotti
RELIQUARIES
Relics, physical tokens of sanctity, were essential to
the medieval Church and representative of Christ and
of holy people and holy places. Their containers,
termed reliquaries (or shrines), are a conspicuous man-
ifestation, although most relics were never formally
enshrined. Relics, whether primary (corporeal remains)
or secondary (material things hallowed by contact or
association), when subject to enshrinement were simul-
taneously protected, honored, and enhanced, and many
shrines were readily portable. Reliquaries themselves
have secondary status, having continued to be revered,
in some cases to the present day, by a transference of
sanctity from their original contents. The latter for cer-
tain categories of shrine are characteristically lost,
notably in the case of Irish tomb-shaped shrines of
seventh- to ninth-century date. These are, plausibly, the
reflex of a native cult of corporeal relics, although the
imported (presumably secondary) relics mentioned in
early sources may have inspired their initial manufac-
ture. The oldest, the late seventh-century, all-metal
shrine from Clonmore, County Armagh, and its Irish-
made analogue in Bobbio imitate Continental (and ulti-
mately Classical) forms, but the only probable import,
a stone box with sliding lid from Dromiskin, County
Louth, is unique in Ireland. The Clonmore and Bobbio
shrines, and their eighth- and ninth-century descen-
dants (one of which, preserved in Tuscany, contains
some human bone), appear to be miniature versions of
larger containers such as the sargifagum martyrumin
seventh-century Armagh or the monumentaof Brigid
and Conláed that flanked the altar in contemporary
Kildare.
Just as a small relic was representative of the com-
plete, if disarticulated, skeleton of the saint, so the por-
table, wearable shrine represented its larger container.
The latter shrines have not survived, although betokened
by such remnants as the metal finials long preserved at
St. Germain-en-Laye. While Christian altars incorpo-
rated relics from the sixth century, this usage in Ireland
is scantily attested: a cavity within the altar of Teach
Molaisseon Inishmurray was recognized in the nine-
teenth century, and the building was itself Molaisse’s
shrine, but the mionnaof the altar of Clonmacnoise,
noted in the annals at 1143, might have been accessories
and need not have been an integral endowment. The
burial, or enshrinement, of the holy dead in proximity
to altars, as at Kildare, was seemingly an Insular alter-
native. However, not all monumental tombs were nec-
essarily housed indoors, and those of stone surviving in
the open include both box- and tent-shaped forms; one
of the latter, at Killabuonia, County Kerry, is pierced at
one end to allow repeated access and the creation of
relics secondarily. If whole bodies were enshrined in the
seventh century, parts thereof were probably so treated,RELIGIOUS ORDERS