Skip to main content

What have the Irish ever done for us? (Quite a lot, actually)

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, along with 12 companions, across the Irish sea to Iona, which at the time was part of the same kingdom of Dál Riata. Exile from one's homeland was considered both an act of penitence and also an opportunity for Christian service: they were "exiles for Christ's sake" (pelegrini pro Christo). On Iona, Columba founded an abbey which became a base for evangelising the Picts who inhabited what is now northern Scotland (see painting right). Later, the monks founded another major monastery at Lindisfarne, off the eastern coast of what is now Scotland. This became a base for evangelising the kingdom of Northumbria, where the inhabitants were ethnically Angles (of Germanic extraction) and pagan in belief. One of the most famous missionaries was Aidan, who was able to communicate the gospel simply and gently to his pagan hearers. English was not Aidan's native language and, initially, the Northumbrian king interpreted for him.  

Later, in 590, another Irish monk called Columbanus set sail from Bangor, likewise with 12 companions, arriving in what is now France where he and his companions set up monasteries, such as the one at Bobbio, and reached out to the nominally Christian or pagan inhabitants of Europe. Gall (d.645), for example, worked in what is now Switzerland. Killian is known at the Apostle of Thuringia and Franconia.  

This intense period of Irish missionary work lasted until the death of Virgil in 784. In a later phase, there was further Irish influence in the later medieval period. Throughout Central Europe there are many Schottenkloster (Scottish, i.e. Irish, cloisters), which date from this time. From the 690s, the recently converted Anglo-Saxons had a similar period of mission, lasting until the late 700s.    

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The history of the Christian Church in twenty places

α. Jerusalem (30 or 33 AD) The place where Christ, the Son-of-God-become-man, died on the Cross, was raised from the dead on the third day, and from where he ascended back to heaven. This is also where the Holy Spirit was poured out on the first disciples. Sometime after AD 44 (Acts 12), Peter, John and other Apostles dispersed across the world to bear testimony to the risen Christ. 1. Ephesus (approx. 100 AD) The place where the Apostles, Paul and John, handed over to the next generation of Christian leaders, which included the “Apostolic Fathers”. One such “Apostolic Father”, Ignatius of Antioch, passed through Ephesus on his way to martyrdom at Rome, and addressed a letter to the church at Ephesus. 2. Athens (second century) The centre of Greek thought, which Justin Martyr and other Second Century Apologists addressed in their presentations of the Christian faith, proclaiming Christ as the Logos (the Word or principle underlying the universe). 3. Lyon (from 177) The church in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wilfrid of Ripon (634-709)

Our family recently visited Ripon in Yorkshire, an historic town associated with a figure called Wilfrid. On our visit to the Cathedral, it turned out that there was no biography available in the Cathedral shop, so I am minded to write my own. While this history is full of unfamiliar roles and concepts, nevertheless, these were our, albeit imperfect, Christian forefathers. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3, warns of "boasting in men" and then goes on to say, "All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future -- all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." It is in that spirit that I have penned the present brief life of Wilfrid of Ripon. The 600s is a long time ago, and at that time the map of our country looked quite different to the way it looks today. Just 200 years earlier, settlers (the Angles, Saxons and Jutes) had sailed across the North Sea from what is now Germany, Denmark and the...
Post a Comment
Read more

George of Lydda ("Saint George")

Saint George, the patron saint of England, was an historical figure, although many things ascribed to him are not historical.  George of Lydda was born into a noble family in an area called Cappadocia (now Turkey), which at the time was populated by Greek speaking citizens of the Roman Empire. George was born around 280. His mother appears to have come from Diospolis/Lydda (now known as Lod, near Tel Aviv), the place where he was later to die. When his father died, George and his mother moved back to the town of her birth.  George was a soldier in the Roman army at the time of Emperor Diocletian. When the protracted persecution of Christians unleashed by Diocletian began to be directed at Christians in the army, George was martryred by decapitation at Lydda in the year 303.  George's death was said to have inspired Empress Alexandra of Rome (d. 314) to become Christian.  The later stories of dragon-slaying are not historical and do not appear in early hagiographies (...
Post a Comment
Read more