A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRISH MONASTICISM
by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS
ST PATRICK was trained as a monk in Gaul. Christian Gaul was under the influence of the old Greek colonies in south-eastern France and the monasticism of Gaul was of a similar character to the monasticism of Egypt - in the spirit of St Anthony. The popularity of St Anthony is seen in the copies of St Athanasius' Life of St Anthony in the monastic libraries and more concretely in his image on many high crosses.
St Patrick was particularly influenced by his Gaulish monastic exemplar - St Martin of Tours. Sulpicius' Life of St Martin was also widely available in Irish monasteries. The Irish monastic communities followed the spirituality and practice of desert monasticism. This was ascetic and altogether different from the monasticism that would develop on the continent under the Rule of St Benedict. Benedictine monasticism paralleled the cenobitic monasticim of Cappadocia influenced by St Basil.
Egyptian monasticism tended to be eremitic; this phenomenon, beloved of the Irish, was later common in Orthodox Russia. The great Irish monasteries began as hermitagesw. Anchorites such as St Enda attracted huge followings and thus laid the foundations of influential monasteries - St Kevin's in Glendalough was a good example of this.
When St Colmcille - whether voluntarily or otherwise - went to Iona in 563, he set a very important precedent in the development of the Irish church. Ever after, Irish monks would seek to preach the Gospel overseas.
Very soon afterwards, Irish monks left their mark all over the continent. St Columbanus was particularly influential in France and Italy, and his disciple St Gall established a monastery in a canton that still bears his name in Switzerland. St Fiachra became particularly associated with Paris taxi-drivers. All over the German-speaking world, the phenomenon of the Schottenklöster or "Scottish monastery" is indicative no of the Scots, but of the Irish. Scotus was Latin for Gael. There is a district in Vienna called Schottentor which is indicative of this Irish invasion. Irish monks went as far east as Kiev and perhaps Novgorod. St Brendan the Navigator may well have reached Newfoundland.
In time, the Irish monasteries in Europe adopted the Benedictine rule, but continued to be Irish in character until the Reformation. The Schottenklöster were known for the asceticism of their monks; St Macarius was the prior of the Schottenkloster in Würzburg in the 1100s and he was said to have changed wine into water. Würzburg is at the heart of the Franconian wine producing region along the Main.
Strict asceticism
Irish monasteries, as remarkable for their distinctive craftsmanship and scholarship as for their asceticism, fell into disarray due to the political instability of the following centuries. The Viking raids maid a well-publicised impact; but many monasteries suffered at the hands of Irish nobles.
A reform movement was already in place at this time. In around 800, the Céle Dé (Slaves of God) were established in Tallaght, Co Dublin, principally by the anchorite St Óengus. The Céle Dé, also known as Culdees and currently fêted among New Agers, were an incredibly strict monastic movement, analogous to orders which developed later. Their concept of stabilitas loci was very literal and they lived on a very meagre vegetarian diet - they seem to have anticipated the Carthusians.
The movement spread rapidly and soon had foundations all over Ireland - some more questionable than others. The ninth century king-bishop of Munster and Cashel, Feilimid mac Crimthaind, was a Céle Dé. Feilimid was both very able and politically astute. He set about claiming the high kingship and nearly succeeded until he was killed in battle against the Uí Néill in 847. During Feilimid's reign, the cause of reform had a momentum unlike at any other period. Not many abbots would risk taking on his wrath at the time.
Malachy and Bernard
The political upheaval that began after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 was damaging to the Church in Ireland. Clontarf was no great victory; when Brian Boru died, the notion of a country under a single high king was established, but it was at least another century before a given dynasty established a claim to the high kingship.
In the late 11th century, the Irish Church faced another threat as the Archbishops of Canterbury began claiming jurisdiction over Ireland. A movement of Irish Churchmen saw it was important to for Irishmen to reform the Church here before others would come to reform it. The star of this movement was St Malachy of Armagh - and the most significant element was the relationship of St Malachy to the most influential churchman of the day - St Bernard of Clairvaux. The relics of Ss Malachy and Bernard are kept together before the high altar in the monastery of Clairvaux - and it is said they cannot be separated.
St Malachy introduced the Cistercians and the Augustinian canons regular into Ireland, and other orders followed. When the Cistercian Pope Blessed Eugenius III was in exile, he asked St Bernard for advice and St Bernard told him to model his life on St Malachy. Blessed Eugenius perhaps made the most significant contribution to the Irish Church in its whole history in 1152, when he sent John Cardinal Paparo as his legate to the Synod of Kells.
The embryonic Irish hierarchy erectic dioceses and petitioned for pallia for Armagh and Cashel. This was not what Blessed Eugenius granted. Cardinal Paparo delivered not two, but four pallia to Ireland - recognising Dublin and Tuam as metropolitian sees in addition to Armagh and Cashel.
English Pope's role
It is a tragedy of Irish history that there was rivalry between the Cistercians and Benedictines. The more ascetic Cistercians held the upper hand in Ireland as they do today. Blessed Eugenius had difficulties with King Stephen of England who retained the throne after a civil war against the Empress Matilda. Eugenius was succeeded by the English Benedictine Adrian IV who had no sympathy for Cistercians and a better relationship with Matilda's son Henry II (who was later excommunicated for the murder of St Thomas Beckett). Adrian issued the Bull Laudabiliter to Henry granting him Ireland as a papal fief, on the condition he would reform the Church.
So, within the space of a few years, a Cistercian pope saw the Irish church as being in such a good condition that it deserved four metropolitans, rather than just the two it had requested; and then a Benedictine pope came to the conclusion that the only hope for the Irish church was to entrust its reformation to a foreign monarch who happened to be a fellow countryman of his!
However, there is no doubt that the post-Norman invasion Irish Church maintained its vigour and continued to journey far afield. To mention two examples, the tutor of the young St Thomas Aquinas was a teacher called Petrus de Hiberniae (Peter of Ireland). One imagines he did a good job. And when the Franciscans sent a mission to China in the mid-13th century, among the friars was Jacobus de Hiberniae (James of Ireland). The Mongol dynasty was quite amenable to external ideas, including Christianity; and an archdiocese was erected in Beijing. The Mongols were overthrown by the more inward looking Ming dynasty around the time the Black Death wreaked havoc with the Western Church. And thus a tremendous opportunity was lost.
The Great Schism
In the later Middle Ages, the Irish Church suffered the decadence that was the lot of the Western Church after the Black Death. Religious communities were particularly affected - and devastated. The Great Schism of the West happened soon aftertwards. It is well worth noting that two canonised saints of the Dominican Order, St Vincent Ferrer and St Catherine of Siena disagreed as to which purported Pope was legitimate. Every order had at least two claimant superiors-general, based in Avignon and Rome. And after the schism, there was still much disagreement as to the balance of power between a Council and a Pope.
The fifteenth century saw three of the mendicant orders - the Augustinians, Dominicans and Franciscans - develop reform movements within themselves. These observantine congregations went back to their original rule, constitutions, spirituality and purposes, and also depended directly on the superior general rather than a local provincial who might have had political biases injurious to the interest of the order. The observantine Augustinians particularly established themselves in the west of Ireland and principally among the Irish-speaking population. This one bright spark offered a hope to the church which was standing on the brink of chaos.
Disaster on disaster
One immediate consequence of Henry VIII's schism was the suppression of religious houses in Ireland simply to gratify the avarice of the king's henchmen. Some houses lasted as late as the reign of James I, but excepting a respite during Mary I's reign, the so-called Reformation led to one disaster after another for Ireland, culminating in the Penal Laws which lasted into the 19th century.
However, attempts were made to run religious houses in Ireland during penal times. My favourite story relates to the presence of incognito Dominican nuns in Drogheda in the 17th century. The local sheriff called to the house to discuss rumours of "Popish nuns" living there. The prioress, an aristocratic Irishwoman, received him in her finest gown and put on all her airs and graces, dispelling the suggestion with the truthful statement: "Sir, the women in this house are no more Popish nuns than I am."
All over Europe
All this time, Irish religious houses were established all over the continent, many to parallel the Irish colleges there. To this day, there is still an Irish Dominican convent in Lisbon and until the First World War there was an Irish Benedictine convent in Ypres (now Kylemore Abbey). There were Irish religious houses in Paris, Louvain and Salamanca, all now tragically closed. At one stage, there was an Irish college in Prague, associated with Charles University.
There were several other centres throughout the Catholic world which also provided Catholic gentlemen with education for vocations in the world. A relative of Daniel O'Connell once said their clothes, their wine, their education and their religious were all contraband. O'Connell and his brother were students at Douay at the time of the French Revolution and witnessed the bloodshed first hand - and the anti-religious nature of the revolution. The Napoleonic era marked much upheaval for the church in Europe, so the relaxation of the penal laws afforded the Irish on the continent an opportunity to come home.
The 19th century was marked not only by the re-establishment of older religious orders in Ireland, or those founded on the continent in the interim, but by the foundation of new religious orders specifically for Irish needs: Blessed Ignatius Rice's Christian Brothers and Presentation Brothers; Nano Nagle's Presentation Sisters; Mother Catherine McCauley's Sisters of Mercy; and Mother Mary Aikenhead's Sisters of Charity. As Cardinal Cullen dominated the Irish church in the mid-nineteenth century, convents and monasteries dotted the country.
Once again the Irish took to the missions, building up the Church throughout the English-speaking world, prior to moving into more difficult territories. Three endeavours arose from Maynooth alone in the early 20th century. Following the failure of the Maynooth Mission to India, the Maynooth Mission to China and the Maynooth Mission to Africa became the Society of St Columban and the Society of St Patrick.
A sudden drought
Religious life continued to expand in Ireland until the late 20th century, when it suddenly slowed down and went into reverse. Religious houses closed. Religious were no longer visible. Religious spokesmen and women sent out mixed messages in a confused age. The source of religious vocations suddenly dried up where only a short time ago they had been plentiful.
This is not altogether new in the Irish church. Religious life in Ireland had many dark and bleak periods. These coincided with a general decline in the health of the Church. When the Church recovered, religious life was strong - but such a strengthening was evident in the fervour of the religious; the pride in which they wore their distinctive habits, practiced the ascetic life, proclaimed the teaching of the Church in and out of season, and stuck to the original intention of their founders.
The world is not without such religious houses - more in France than anywhere else. So when are we going to look once again to continental Europe for guidance?
The Brandsma Review, Issue 65, March-April 2003
Egyptian monasticism tended to be eremitic; this phenomenon, beloved of the Irish, was later common in Orthodox Russia. The great Irish monasteries began as hermitagesw. Anchorites such as St Enda attracted huge followings and thus laid the foundations of influential monasteries - St Kevin's in Glendalough was a good example of this.
When St Colmcille - whether voluntarily or otherwise - went to Iona in 563, he set a very important precedent in the development of the Irish church. Ever after, Irish monks would seek to preach the Gospel overseas.
Very soon afterwards, Irish monks left their mark all over the continent. St Columbanus was particularly influential in France and Italy, and his disciple St Gall established a monastery in a canton that still bears his name in Switzerland. St Fiachra became particularly associated with Paris taxi-drivers. All over the German-speaking world, the phenomenon of the Schottenklöster or "Scottish monastery" is indicative no of the Scots, but of the Irish. Scotus was Latin for Gael. There is a district in Vienna called Schottentor which is indicative of this Irish invasion. Irish monks went as far east as Kiev and perhaps Novgorod. St Brendan the Navigator may well have reached Newfoundland.
In time, the Irish monasteries in Europe adopted the Benedictine rule, but continued to be Irish in character until the Reformation. The Schottenklöster were known for the asceticism of their monks; St Macarius was the prior of the Schottenkloster in Würzburg in the 1100s and he was said to have changed wine into water. Würzburg is at the heart of the Franconian wine producing region along the Main.
Strict asceticism
Irish monasteries, as remarkable for their distinctive craftsmanship and scholarship as for their asceticism, fell into disarray due to the political instability of the following centuries. The Viking raids maid a well-publicised impact; but many monasteries suffered at the hands of Irish nobles.
A reform movement was already in place at this time. In around 800, the Céle Dé (Slaves of God) were established in Tallaght, Co Dublin, principally by the anchorite St Óengus. The Céle Dé, also known as Culdees and currently fêted among New Agers, were an incredibly strict monastic movement, analogous to orders which developed later. Their concept of stabilitas loci was very literal and they lived on a very meagre vegetarian diet - they seem to have anticipated the Carthusians.
The movement spread rapidly and soon had foundations all over Ireland - some more questionable than others. The ninth century king-bishop of Munster and Cashel, Feilimid mac Crimthaind, was a Céle Dé. Feilimid was both very able and politically astute. He set about claiming the high kingship and nearly succeeded until he was killed in battle against the Uí Néill in 847. During Feilimid's reign, the cause of reform had a momentum unlike at any other period. Not many abbots would risk taking on his wrath at the time.
Malachy and Bernard
The political upheaval that began after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 was damaging to the Church in Ireland. Clontarf was no great victory; when Brian Boru died, the notion of a country under a single high king was established, but it was at least another century before a given dynasty established a claim to the high kingship.
In the late 11th century, the Irish Church faced another threat as the Archbishops of Canterbury began claiming jurisdiction over Ireland. A movement of Irish Churchmen saw it was important to for Irishmen to reform the Church here before others would come to reform it. The star of this movement was St Malachy of Armagh - and the most significant element was the relationship of St Malachy to the most influential churchman of the day - St Bernard of Clairvaux. The relics of Ss Malachy and Bernard are kept together before the high altar in the monastery of Clairvaux - and it is said they cannot be separated.
St Malachy introduced the Cistercians and the Augustinian canons regular into Ireland, and other orders followed. When the Cistercian Pope Blessed Eugenius III was in exile, he asked St Bernard for advice and St Bernard told him to model his life on St Malachy. Blessed Eugenius perhaps made the most significant contribution to the Irish Church in its whole history in 1152, when he sent John Cardinal Paparo as his legate to the Synod of Kells.
The embryonic Irish hierarchy erectic dioceses and petitioned for pallia for Armagh and Cashel. This was not what Blessed Eugenius granted. Cardinal Paparo delivered not two, but four pallia to Ireland - recognising Dublin and Tuam as metropolitian sees in addition to Armagh and Cashel.
English Pope's role
It is a tragedy of Irish history that there was rivalry between the Cistercians and Benedictines. The more ascetic Cistercians held the upper hand in Ireland as they do today. Blessed Eugenius had difficulties with King Stephen of England who retained the throne after a civil war against the Empress Matilda. Eugenius was succeeded by the English Benedictine Adrian IV who had no sympathy for Cistercians and a better relationship with Matilda's son Henry II (who was later excommunicated for the murder of St Thomas Beckett). Adrian issued the Bull Laudabiliter to Henry granting him Ireland as a papal fief, on the condition he would reform the Church.
So, within the space of a few years, a Cistercian pope saw the Irish church as being in such a good condition that it deserved four metropolitans, rather than just the two it had requested; and then a Benedictine pope came to the conclusion that the only hope for the Irish church was to entrust its reformation to a foreign monarch who happened to be a fellow countryman of his!
However, there is no doubt that the post-Norman invasion Irish Church maintained its vigour and continued to journey far afield. To mention two examples, the tutor of the young St Thomas Aquinas was a teacher called Petrus de Hiberniae (Peter of Ireland). One imagines he did a good job. And when the Franciscans sent a mission to China in the mid-13th century, among the friars was Jacobus de Hiberniae (James of Ireland). The Mongol dynasty was quite amenable to external ideas, including Christianity; and an archdiocese was erected in Beijing. The Mongols were overthrown by the more inward looking Ming dynasty around the time the Black Death wreaked havoc with the Western Church. And thus a tremendous opportunity was lost.
The Great Schism
In the later Middle Ages, the Irish Church suffered the decadence that was the lot of the Western Church after the Black Death. Religious communities were particularly affected - and devastated. The Great Schism of the West happened soon aftertwards. It is well worth noting that two canonised saints of the Dominican Order, St Vincent Ferrer and St Catherine of Siena disagreed as to which purported Pope was legitimate. Every order had at least two claimant superiors-general, based in Avignon and Rome. And after the schism, there was still much disagreement as to the balance of power between a Council and a Pope.
The fifteenth century saw three of the mendicant orders - the Augustinians, Dominicans and Franciscans - develop reform movements within themselves. These observantine congregations went back to their original rule, constitutions, spirituality and purposes, and also depended directly on the superior general rather than a local provincial who might have had political biases injurious to the interest of the order. The observantine Augustinians particularly established themselves in the west of Ireland and principally among the Irish-speaking population. This one bright spark offered a hope to the church which was standing on the brink of chaos.
Disaster on disaster
One immediate consequence of Henry VIII's schism was the suppression of religious houses in Ireland simply to gratify the avarice of the king's henchmen. Some houses lasted as late as the reign of James I, but excepting a respite during Mary I's reign, the so-called Reformation led to one disaster after another for Ireland, culminating in the Penal Laws which lasted into the 19th century.
However, attempts were made to run religious houses in Ireland during penal times. My favourite story relates to the presence of incognito Dominican nuns in Drogheda in the 17th century. The local sheriff called to the house to discuss rumours of "Popish nuns" living there. The prioress, an aristocratic Irishwoman, received him in her finest gown and put on all her airs and graces, dispelling the suggestion with the truthful statement: "Sir, the women in this house are no more Popish nuns than I am."
All over Europe
All this time, Irish religious houses were established all over the continent, many to parallel the Irish colleges there. To this day, there is still an Irish Dominican convent in Lisbon and until the First World War there was an Irish Benedictine convent in Ypres (now Kylemore Abbey). There were Irish religious houses in Paris, Louvain and Salamanca, all now tragically closed. At one stage, there was an Irish college in Prague, associated with Charles University.
There were several other centres throughout the Catholic world which also provided Catholic gentlemen with education for vocations in the world. A relative of Daniel O'Connell once said their clothes, their wine, their education and their religious were all contraband. O'Connell and his brother were students at Douay at the time of the French Revolution and witnessed the bloodshed first hand - and the anti-religious nature of the revolution. The Napoleonic era marked much upheaval for the church in Europe, so the relaxation of the penal laws afforded the Irish on the continent an opportunity to come home.
The 19th century was marked not only by the re-establishment of older religious orders in Ireland, or those founded on the continent in the interim, but by the foundation of new religious orders specifically for Irish needs: Blessed Ignatius Rice's Christian Brothers and Presentation Brothers; Nano Nagle's Presentation Sisters; Mother Catherine McCauley's Sisters of Mercy; and Mother Mary Aikenhead's Sisters of Charity. As Cardinal Cullen dominated the Irish church in the mid-nineteenth century, convents and monasteries dotted the country.
Once again the Irish took to the missions, building up the Church throughout the English-speaking world, prior to moving into more difficult territories. Three endeavours arose from Maynooth alone in the early 20th century. Following the failure of the Maynooth Mission to India, the Maynooth Mission to China and the Maynooth Mission to Africa became the Society of St Columban and the Society of St Patrick.
A sudden drought
Religious life continued to expand in Ireland until the late 20th century, when it suddenly slowed down and went into reverse. Religious houses closed. Religious were no longer visible. Religious spokesmen and women sent out mixed messages in a confused age. The source of religious vocations suddenly dried up where only a short time ago they had been plentiful.
This is not altogether new in the Irish church. Religious life in Ireland had many dark and bleak periods. These coincided with a general decline in the health of the Church. When the Church recovered, religious life was strong - but such a strengthening was evident in the fervour of the religious; the pride in which they wore their distinctive habits, practiced the ascetic life, proclaimed the teaching of the Church in and out of season, and stuck to the original intention of their founders.
The world is not without such religious houses - more in France than anywhere else. So when are we going to look once again to continental Europe for guidance?
The Brandsma Review, Issue 65, March-April 2003
This was originally given the title "The European Roots of Irish Religious Life", though Egypt was one of my starting points. I was mistaken in Adrian IV's affiliation. He was educated by Benedictines and wished to join, but he was refused and joined the Augustinian canons regular instead. It would be also wrong to call him a fellow countryman of Henry II, as Adrian was an Anglo-Saxon and Henry was Norman. But he had more sympathy for Benedictines over Cistercians and Normans over the Irish, which is the defining point in regard to Laudabiliter.
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