Irish Christianity Needs an Intervention
I have always loved the aesthetic of historic Irish Christianity. The 5th through 9th centuries (the golden age of the Irish Church) saw the fusion of Gaelic culture with Catholicism and the emergence of one of the most unique expressions of Christian culture anywhere in the world. The Catholic religion was first planted on the Emerald Isle by the great bishops Sts. Palladius and Patrick in the 5th century; after them came scores of holy abbots and abbesses, such as Sts. Enda, Finnian, Bridget, and Ciarán, who, through their pious lives, nurtured the faith. Catholic culture flourished on Éire, still manifest in a thousand different ways—the elegant insular style of decoration that illumines the Book of Kells and The Lindisfarne Gospels; the haunting monastic ruins of Clonmacnoise and Skellig Michael; the countless place names scattered throughout Ireland that call back to its illustrious saints; the lonely Celtic cross tombstones that rise persistently from the wild countryside.
So many holy people came out of Ireland’s golden age that it was nicknamed the Island of Saints and Scholars. Nor was their light for Éire alone, as missionary monks like Sts. Columba of Iona and Columbanus of Luxeuil carried the faith to the far flung corners of Europe. Others, like the famous St. Brendan, took it even farther abroad, crossing the Atlantic and settling even in remote Iceland (to this day Iceland has a town called Patreksfjörður, “Patrick’s Fjord,” founded by Irish monks in the 8th century).
In latter times the island was hallowed by numerous scholars and martyrs, such as the renowned St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, or St. Oliver Plunkett, murdered by the English during the anti-Catholic hysteria of the early 17th century. Ireland’s Catholics suffered steadfastly for their faith during the hard years of the penal laws. Many left Ireland, taking their faith abroad. From Australia to California, the Irish priest was a staple of life across the English-speaking Catholic world. When Ireland finally gained her independence from Britain, she sought to enshrine her Catholic heritage in her laws. Accordingly, the Irish Constitution of 1937 begins with this solemn invocation:
In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Éire, humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial, Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation…
Sadly, recent years have seen the Christian heritage of Ireland systematically undermined. The phrase “Irish spirituality” today conjures not the memory of Erin’s luminous saints, but rather an environmentalist neo-pagan ethos sharing more in common with New Age philosophy than historic Irish religion. This is exemplified in the case of St. Brigid of Kildare, who has been practically transmogrified into a pagan goddess—this despite the fact that there is zero literary or historical evidence that Brigid was ever anything but a Catholic holy woman.
