Chapter LXIX: Section 2: The Church of Ireland

The Church of Ireland was not, like the Church of Great Britain, to which it owes its foundation, a prey to the depressing influences of the heathen Saxons; and, at the time of the mission of St. Augustine, the daughter was in some measure enabled to repay to the mother the benefits which the British St. Patrick had conferred on the scene of his missionary labours. A constant intercourse was kept up between the numerous monasteries of Ireland and those of Wales and Scotland, some of the abbeys in the latter countries being founded and frequented by Irishmen. [Sidenote: Early reputation of Ireland.] Ireland, in the sixth and seventh centuries, had a great reputation for learning and missionary zeal, both of which were called into play to help in the reconversion of a large portion of England, as well as to encourage the efforts of English Churchmen in retaining in the National Church the national characteristics, with the loss of which it was threatened from the large admixture of foreign elements introduced by St. Augustine. [Sidenote: Irish missionary work in England and elsewhere.] Nor were their missionary labours confined to England: they shared in the toils and honours of the conversion of Germany, and are believed to have penetrated as far as Iceland and Greenland. [Sidenote: Unjustifiable conduct of England.] The aid given by Irish ecclesiastics in preserving the religious liberty of the Church of England was ill requited in the twelfth century, when the English, having taken possession of Ireland, forced the Irish Church to abandon her distinctive Liturgy by a decree passed at the synod of Cashel, A.D. 1173. The state of anarchy and restless discontent into which {152} Ireland was thrown by the presence of English invaders, had a very unfavourable effect on the Church of the country, as had also the appointment of Englishmen to Irish bishoprics, and the consequent non-residence of the Bishops. It is curious that the influence of English conquerors should have tended to extend Roman authority in Ireland, much as the policy of Norman conquerors produced the same effect in England. Before the Reformation, the state of the Irish Church had become thoroughly unsatisfactory, and was felt to be so by many of the Irish themselves.