Crumbs from the Table

The Roman Empire never reached Ireland. Partly for that reason, neither did the Christian gospel, until the 5th century when first Palladius, and later Patrick were sent as missionaries to the people of Ireland, known as Gaels or Scoti .  I have told the story of Patrick elsewhere, but suffice it to say that, born in a Christian family in Britain (his father was a deacon), Patrick was taken captive by Irish pirates and spent many years held against his will before escaping and eventually ending up in what is now France, studying at Auxerre. Patrick was called by God to bring the gospel to his former captors, and the conversion of Ireland to Christianity is associated with him.  At that time, Ireland had few if any cities, and the backbone of the Irish church was the monastic movement with a network of monasteries in places such as Foyle (near Derry/Londonderry) and Bangor. In the year 563 a young monk called Columba ( Colum Cille ), left the monastery at Foyle (near Derry) and sailed,

After the Romans withdrew from Britain in the 400s, Germanic settlers came over from what is now Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands: the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. While the native Britons had been partially Christianised, the incoming settlers were pagan. The Britons were pushed to the margins of the British isles, particularly to Wales.  It was the Irish monks originally led by Columba from Derry, who had settled off the west coast of Scotland, who undertook the evangelisation of the Picts and later the Germanic settlers. This took place in the 500s and 600s CE.  The church historian Bede tells how the first missionary to the kingdom of Northumbria was rather harsh, and unable to teach the Germanic Barbarians the Christian faith. Rather, it was Aidan (d.651) who took a gentler approach, teaching first the "milk" of the Word before proceeding to more "solid" food. Bede records this in his History of the English Church and People, Book 3, Chapter 5.