St Lorcan the Peacemaker

SAINT LORCAN THE PEACEMAKER

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Beati pacifici: quoniam filii Dei vocabuntur - St Matthew, 5:9

A Muire as mor in gním ado ringed in hErend indiu.(Mary, terrible is the deed done in Ireland this day) - A Leinster scribe lamenting the banishment of Diarmait Mac Murchada in 1166)

WE often judge past in the light of subsequent events.  For example, there is a tendency to see the First World War through the prism of the Second.  Notwithstanding nasty Prussian militarism, the Central Powers were not comparable with the Axis Powers a generation later.  The former's defeat was no great triumph for the West - it rather set Europe up for something much worse.

Likewise, we should not look at Brian Boróma through post-Norman invasion spectacles (pardon the anachronism).  A disgruntled, dispossessed Gaelic noble gave his version of events in Cogadh Gaedel re Gallda.  The central thesis was that the Ua Conchobair dynasty was as incompetent against the Norman as the Uí Néill were against the Viking - but Brian Boróma was the Irish military exemplare and ideal king.

The truth was different.  The Vikings were long defeated and baptised prior to Clontarf, in which more of them were allied to Brian's real enemy, Máel Mórda, than to Brian himself.  Contemporary Irish aristocrats regarded Brian as a parvenu of inferior ancestry (the monks of Cashel could even point at two pedigrees - one was obviously flawed).  And Clontarf was a Phyrric victory - it resulted in several generations of internecine warfare preparing the country for the Norman invasion.

For all that, Brian was ruthless and able, and if he allowed his admiration for Charlemagne carry him away (signing the Book of Armagh as Imperator Scottorum), it was his vision of a centralised Irish kingdom which dominated Irish political thought ever since.

Clontarf devastated Leinster.  A ruler with the unlikely moniker of Diarmait mac Máel na mBó attained the kingship of Leinster in 1042 and claimed the high kingship a generation after Brian.  His sept, the Uí Cennsalaig, would dominate Leinster politics in the following centuries (though they hadn't provided a king for several centuries previously).  Many lines vied for the high kingship and the country was beset by intermittent civil war and anarchy.

The former Viking towns looked to Canterbury for spiritual guidance, and Gaelic churchmen recognised Lanfranc and St Anselm's designs on Ireland.  They delivered the reform of the Irish church during the ceasefires.

Blessed Eugenius III approved the Irish Church's reforms by granting the requested pallia to Armagh and Cashel and granting additional pallia to Dublin and Tuam on his own initiative.  Thus he guarranteed the independence of the Irish Church in 1152.  Eugenius was a Cistercian and saw that the reform was Cistercian-driven.  His mentor, St Bernard of Clairvaux, was very close to St Malachy of Armagh.  The black monks and white monks were engaged in a power struggle at the time and Eugenius was succeed by an English Benedictine, Adrian IV.

Young Henry II wanted to conquer Ireland and sent John of Salisbury to get Adrian's approbation.  In 1155, Adrian saw the Irish Church differently to his predecessor (there were few Benedictines in Ireland), so he commissioned Henry to bring Christianity to Ireland in Laudabiliter.  The Empress Mathilda was still alive and had no desire to see her son engage in wasteful adventures.  So Henry neglected his charge for another decade and a half.

Twelfth-century Ireland was dominated by the career of Diarmait MacMurchada.  He became king of Leinster in 1126.  Unable to compete for the high kingship like his great-grandfather, he could and did make it difficult for others.  The year he took the throne, Lorcan Ua Tuathail (Laurence O'Toole) was born in Wicklow.  Until the advent of Diarmait mac Máel na mBó, the Ua Tuathail were a more prestigious family than MacMurchada.  Lorcan's mother was an Ua Brain princess of Uí Faeláin, from North Leinster's second family (Wicklow and Kildare were in north Leinster at the time).  In the Gaelic custom, Lorcan was sent to the Ua Conchobair of Uí Fáilge for foseterage, which aligned him to a third powerful house in Leinster, as befitted a young prince.  All was well until Leinster nobles intrigued against the king in 1141.  Diarmait killed or blinded 17 of the conspirators in anticipatory retaliation.  Muirchertach Ua Tuathail became head of the Uí Muireadaig and his only daughter was married to Diarmait.  As a safeguard against further plots, Diarmait dragged Lorcan with other Leinster princes to Ferns as hostages.
A clear insult
The old Gaelic order was very strict on the treatment of hostages, but Diarmait did not comply.  He sent Lorcan to an inferior household, a clear insult to his wife's family.  Muirchertach seized a few of Diarmait's key officers and threatened to kill them if his son was not released.  Diarmait placed the boy in the custody of the Abbot of Glendalough until Muirchertach let his men go.  Lorcan was tired of politics now and wanted to remain in Glendalough as a monk.  An ironic beginning to a vocation that would place him at the epicentre of a political crisis which would have permanent repercussions in Ireland.

There were doubts about Lorcan in Glendalough.  His education was martial rather than literary.  And there was discontent when his father nominated him as abbot in 1153 (which was in Muirchertach's gift).  Lorcan had already been ordained to the priesthood when younger than the canonical age of 30.  However, it is a tribute to Lorcan that he was the near unanimous choice as Bishop of Glendalough when Gilla na Náemh died in 1157.  He refused on the grounds he was too young.

In 1161, he became Archbishop of Dublin.  There had been eight Bishops of Dublin before his immediate predecessor Gréne (Gregory) got the pallium in 1152.  These were all Ostmen (as the descendents of the Vikings were called) with no love for the Gaelic Irish and until the Synod of Kells, they looked to Canterbury rather than Armagh.  Lorcan's brother-in-law, Diarmait, was overlord of Dublin and he had a hand in the election.  The Primate, Gilla mac Liag MacRuaidri, consecrated Lorcan.

The Dublin Ostmen were not enthusiastic about the appointment.  Christ Church Cathedral was Lorcan's first priority.  He introduced the observantine Arrouasian Congregation of Augustinian Canons into the cathedral and as far as his administrative duties allowed, he took an active part in Christ Church's liturgical life (wearing the Arrouasian habit) and he was known for his prayer, penance and almsdeeds.

The best known Irish twelfth century scandal was Diarmait's abduction of Derbforgall, Tigernan Ua Ruairc's wife in 1152.  Commentators suggest Derbforgall had a role in this, but the king of Breffny became Diarmait's sworn enemy for the insult - even after Derbforgall was returned with her fortune.  The other party to the insult was Mór, Lorcan's sister, who withdrew to a convent in Dublin.  This event would have a disproportionate bearing on subsequent Irish history.

Things came to a head in 1166 when the kings of Ireland combined under Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair to expel Diarmait from Ireland.  They accomplished this and Ua Ruairc drew sinful pleasure form plundering Diarmait's castle in Ferns.

It was a short-lived victory.  Diarmait spent the next year seeking Norman aid.  Though Henry II was too occupied to give him immediate help, he did see the request as a golden opportunity (to rid himself of troublesome vassals).  Diarmait still had a problem persuading the Norman Earls on the Welsh Marches to join him, but they did come, to stay.  Initially Diarmait recovered his own territory.  Then he attempted to take Leinster.  The high king successfully thwarted him, but the worst was yet to come.

Strongbow's advance party camped at Baginbun in 1169.  They were reinforced by the main force and took Waterford, after which Strongbow married Diarmait's daughter (Lorcan's niece) Aífe.  Strongbow turned on Dublin.  The Ostman king, Asgall MacTorchaill's fleet controlled the Irish Sea.  A formidable Irish hosting protected Dublin, but Diarmait and Strongbow avoided them, and when Dublin sought terms, Ruaidrí withdrew.  Lorcan now had to intercede with his in-laws on behalf of his flock as Dublin's finest went with Asgall and the navy (and their valuables) to the Isle of Man.  When Asgall returned with reinforcements, Norman luck again prevailed and Asgall, defiant to the end, was beheaded in the hall of his own palace.  A Manx naval squadron blockaded Dublin for two months and Strongbow got into deeper trouble as Diarmait died, but now Henry arrived in Ireland.
Parallel with Becket?
Henry was an unlikely crusader.  He had been excommunicated for his role in St Thomas Beckett's murder, as England faced an interdict - and he came to Ireland to restore Christianity!  His obsequiousness to the Papal Legate, Christian O Conarchy was in marked contrast to his refusal to admit legates to England at the time.  Henry's main motivation in Ireland  was not its conquest, for religious or secular reasons, but the containment of his own Anglo-Norman subjects.  He didn't want an independent Norman kingdom to his west.  He attended the Second Synod of Cashel in the winter of 1171-1172 to convince the Pope of his fidelity.  The Irish bishops were prepared to accept Henry's lordship if he would bring an end to Ireland's protracted political instability.

Though the Normans were as politically divided as the native Irish, they had a clear military superiority and only mutual rivalry and apathy (the former encouraged by Henry) prevented them from overrunning the whole island.  In 1175, Lorcan was the chief negotiator of the Treaty of Windsor between Henry and Ruaidrí.  As the treaty was not honoured, we can only deduce that Lorcan was more interested in securing a peaceful political settlement for Ireland than in rival political claims.  During the negotiation, an assailant attempted to fell Lorcan with an axe as he said Mass.  Noting the similarities between this and Beckett's martyrdom, most contemporaries cast a suspicious eye on Henry.

After Windsor, Lorcan had another test.  St Malachy of Armagh had achieved autonomy for the Irish Church a generation earlier.  It was now for Lorcan to defend it.  Alexander III broadly endorsed the Norman invasion of Ireland, in spite of his distrust of Henry.  He now angered Henry by naming Lorcan as Papal Legate in Ireland in 1179.  Lorcan had a high standing in the universal church and he participated in the Second Lateran Council that year.

As Papal Legate, Lorcan was concerned that the 12th Century reform should not be undone, as signs indicated it would be.  The role of the Norman in this process was interesting.  If the Bull Laudabiliter commissioned Henry to reform the Irish Church, Lorcan must have sensed some irony.  In slightly more than one year in office, he reported over a hundred Norman clerics holding Irish benefices to Roman ecclesiastic tribunals for sundry offences.

One would suspect that Lorcan would no longer be the best candidate to negotiate with Henry.  But this is exactly what Ruaidrí asked him to do in 1180.  Lorcan undertook to do so, to find that Henry refused to see him and left England for France.  Lorcan followed him to Normandy where he fell ill and died in the Abbey of Eu on the night of November 14.  The Augustinian Canons were convinced of his sanctity and investigated his life; one canon wrote his biography.  The cause for his canonisation is regarded as the first modern ecclesiastical legal process in history.  It received overwhelming support from old adversaries - the Ostmen of Dublin, once opposed to his appointment as archbishop, now wholeheartedly endorsed his sanctity.  Even the Normans attested to the prelate's virtue.  In 1225, he was canonised by Pope Honorius II and his feast is on November 14.  His body lies in Eu, but his heart is in his own cathedral - Christ Church.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 76, January-February 2005

Rebel Standun Stuck in a Rut

REBEL STANDÚN STUCK IN A RUT

by JOHN HENEGHAN

EAGLAIS NA gCATACÓMAÍ

by Pádraig Standún. Cló Iarchonnachta.  316pp.  €16.00

THIS book is an apologia pro vita sua in which the author defines the Church of the Catacombs as the Church of dissent: those who cannot accept the official Church.

The introductory chapter gives us the same definition of his role as a rebel.  However, in this regard Standún is not original - he is echoing the current intolerant criticism of the Church as evidenced in Shattered Vows by David Rice and Change and Decay: Irish Catholicism in Crisis by Brendan Hoban.

Chapter Two gives an interesting account of the author's youth in Mayo and how it pointed him in the direction of the priesthood.

Further on in the book he has rightly exposed the problems that existed in Maynooth - but he has used them as a propaganda tool to whip the entire official Church.

Tháinig scéalta chun solais i lár bliana 2002 a thugann le fios gur lú smacht arís, féinsmacht san áireamh a bhí ag Maigh Nuad sna blianta tar éis domsa é a fhágáil. (Page 182)

His clamouring for women priests despite the papal instruction that this is not a matter for discussion is a challenge to papal authority.

Tá a leithéid fireann nó baineann i ngach paróiste ar domhan.  Cén fáth mar sin a bhfuil Pobal Dé fágtha gan Eocaraist?  (Page 105)

Father Standún and his contemporaries find it difficult to accept that they are the greying generation and that their status as rebels has left them stuck in a rut.  Time and the Church have passed them by.

Surely true liberals are not threatened by Traditionalists?  (In fact they can accommodate both the Old Rite and the Novus Ordo despite its variation from parish to parish.)

In my Master's Thesis Pádraig Standún: Saol agus Saothar (unpublished, 1991) I accused Father Standún of a lack of depth in his work because of his use of literature instead of journalism as an instrument of propaganda.  Alan Titley's An tÚrscéal Gaeilge subsequently altered my perspective on this when he pointed out that there are several types of novel apart from the classical mode from Cervantes' Don Quixote.  Therefore any literary work can be described as a novel on its own terms.

In fairness to Pádraig Standún one must admit he has not hesitated to highlight the social problems of the Gaeltacht.  However, while exposing the sexual problems is not a bad thing in itself, an obsession with sexual mores and their linkage with compulsory celibacy and child abuse is somewhat tiresome to the reader.  (So too was the kind of smuttiness suggested by Budawanny, the title of the film of Standún's earlier novel Súil le Breith).  Nevertheless, Standún must be given credit for raising these social issues.

However, from a literary perspective Eaglais na gCatacómaí  is weak.  As Breandán Ó Doibhlin, the eminent critic and novelist has pointed out: a novel must be assessed on its own merits: the author is irrelevant.  Father Standún's elementary mistake is to confuse literature with life.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 76, January-February 2005

St Fergal - Unconventional Apostle

SAINT FERGAL - UNCONVENTIONAL APOSTLE

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Nihil est opertum, quod non revelabitur;et occultum quod non scietur - St Matthw, 10, 26

One of the consolations of Pope Zachary's life...was the filial friendship of Saint Boniface...Among their correspondence..of especial interest...in the light of all the conjecture...over the past few years...of the possibility of "inhabited planets" other than our own...in answer to Saint Boniface's complaint that an Irish priest named Virgilius was disturbing men's minds by teaching that there was another world, other men on another planet beneath the earth, another sun, and another moon...[Pope Zachary] ordered Saint Boniface to reprimand Virgilius, and...to send him to Rome so that his doctrine might be examined...[I]t was not necessary...to condemn Virgilius, for the priest completely yielded to correction...of his Holy Father and went on...to sanctify himself.  He became Bishop of Salzburg, and lived such a life of holiness....that he was canonised by Pope Gregory IX.  (The above piece of papolatrous fantasy comes from Our Glorious Popes by "Sister" Catherine MICM of the Feeneyite Slaves of the Immaculate Heart, itself condemned by St Zachary's more recent successors)

I ONCE attended Mass in a German city on September 24, feast of Ss Rupert and Virgil, the patrons of Salzburg.  German-speakers principally know Salzburg at the birthplace of Mozart.  For most Anglophones, it is better known as the setting of The Sound of Music.  The city has ancient roots: its archbishop is the Primate of the Germans.  Salzburg was Bavarian until the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and rigid distinction between Germany and Austria only dates from 1945.

Ireland has an old association with Salzburg.  Some claim its first archbishop, St Rupert, Apostle of Bavaria and Austria, was an Irishman named Robartach, but more reliable sources say he was Frankish.  However, Irish monks largely provided his education and he brought many with him to Salzburg.  The pre-eminent had yet to come.  This was Rupert's successor, St Virgil or Fergal.
Abbot in Salzburg
Fergal was born in the south of Ireland around 700 and little is known of his early life.  He became a monk and was educated on the Aran Islands, returning to the mainland to succeed St Canice as Abbot of Aghaboe, Co Laois in the Ossory diocese.  In 739, he left Ireland for the Holy Land with two companions, Dobdagrecc and Sidonius.  At first, they worked under King Pepin in France.  In 745, Pepin commended them to his brother-in-law, Duke Odilo of Bavaria, who sent them to St Peter's Abbey in Salzburg.

 Fergal became Abbot of St Peter's.  He declined the episcopacy on the grounds of humility - Dobdagrecc, now Abbot of Chiemsee, was consecrated instead.  Actually, Fergal implemented an Irish hierarchical model where the bishop was subject to the abbot.  In Irish Church politics, Fergal was a conservative with little time for Roman innovations regarding the Easter date or ecclesiastical jurisdiction.  The liturgy in Salzburg under Fergal included commemoration of the 15 Abbots of Iona from St Colmcille down to the contemporary abbot; and he brought relics of St Brigid and St Samthann of Clonbroney with him, inspiring devotion to the two in what is now Austria - the latter virtually forgotten in her own country.

St Boniface was unimpressed by Fergal's arrival in Salzburg.  Odilo had promoted Fergal over Boniface's candidate.  This was a challenge to Boniface's acknowledged German primacy.  Boniface has been accused of racism in his opposition to Fergal and some have suggested this clash of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic temperaments foreshadows future enmity between Ireland and England.  Boniface (né Wynfrith) came from Crediton, Devonshire, not far from the border between Celtic Cornwall and Saxon Wessex and he displayed no affection for his Cornish neighbours.  But he had many Irish monks working under him, two of whom were martyred with him in 754.

We might call Boniface an ultramontanist today.  Fergal may have had Gallican tendencies, but he was so from traditionalist grounds.  Tháinig idir Pheadar agus Phól - the Irish proverb tells us even the apostles Peter and Paul quarrelled.  The two had inevitable disagreements: each suspected the other of heresy.  Boniface knew of Fergal's leanings, but needed something more substantial to go to Rome.

The first occasion Boniface went to Pope St Zachary I concerned the sacrament of baptism.  Two Bavarian priests under Fergal's jurisdiction baptised catechumens with this apparently feminine formula: Baptizo te in nomine patria et filia et spiritu sancta.  This was ignorance, but when Boniface insisted the candidates be re-baptised, Fergal and Sidonius upheld the validity of the sacrament.  Boniface denounced them to Zachary.  The pope confirmed the baptisms were valid and rebuked Boniface instead.
Clash over geography
Fergal had been known for his interest in the natural sciences even in Aghaboe and he engaged in some scientific speculation.  Boniface believed Fergal overstepped the mark, as he appeared to suggest men inhabited the Antipodes.

The confrontation between Boniface and Fergal over geography is still relevant to Catholic apologetics as it deals with the relationship between faith and science.  Anticlerical polemicists hold the Church was staffed by flat-earthers until Columbus' day, by geocentrists until Galileo's and that now, at best, we grudgingly accept evolution (less of a problem for Catholics than sola scriptura Protestants, but this writer needs to see more evidence for macro-evolution). 

Adherents of scientism put the Columbus and Gallileo cases very disingenuously. The objection to Columbus was not that the world was flat but that the round world was a lot bigger than he thought it was.  Columbus extimated Japan was 2,800 miles from Spain.  It is in fact 14,000 miles distant.  Were it not for the hitherto unknown Americas, Columbus and his crew would have died at sea.  As Luther and Calvin's attacks on Father Copernicus trouble nobody, the anticlerical faction point at Gallileo, omitting some details.

Firstly, the Church wrongly accepted the consensus of leading contemporary scientists that the universe was geocentric.  Secondly, Gallileo unwisely strayed into philosophy and theology in self-defence.  This implied the Church herself was heretical and thus brought the Inquisition on to his own case.

Regarding evolution, the only facet of the subject I know anything about is linguistic evolution.  Asked to believe our complex languages developed from animal grunts when all the evidence shows language simplifies over time, I apply Occam's razor and find the Tower of Babel story more credible.  However Occam's razor was first wielded not by the English Francisan William of Occam but by his contemporary, the Anglo-Norman Archbishop of Armagh, Richard Fitzralph, formally canonised by the Church of Ireland in Henry VIII's day as St Richard of Dundalk.  But all this was in the future.
Excommunication threat 
The showdown between Boniface and Fergal anticipated some aspects of the Gallileo case.  Even in the eighth century, thinking people accepted the world was round.  This proposition went back to Greek times.  The problem was to state that men lived in the Antipodes.  Pope Zachary told Boniface that if Fergal taught there were another sun, another moon and another race of men on the other side of the Earth, he would convene a council to investigate Fergal - and if it found him guilty of teaching heresy, he would be deprived of his priesthood and excommunicated.

Greek science held the world was round, but that the equator was in the Torrid Zone, a region of uncrossable heat.  The intelligentsia held this view, and also that no descendent of Adam could have traversed this divide.  This made the premise appear unbiblical: if there were a race of men on the far side, from whom were they descended?

To bring this into the 21st century, many people have an uninformed belief about the possibility of life on other planets.  As it is highly improbable (I gave up using the term impossible a long time ago) that sons of Adam reached hypothetical life-sustaining planets elsewhere in the universe, one must conclude that any alien race differs in lineage.
The shots in Fergal's locker
C.S. Lewis, Irish Anglicanism's foremost apologist, suggested there might be life on other planets, which had not experienced the Fall.  This was the challenge facing Fergal now.  Did he posit there was another race of men on the other side of the world?  Did they experience the Fall and Redemption?  Simply put, the problem was not scientific but theological, though it only arose in the context of accepted science.

So Fergal had to account for this problem before the Pope.  This is where the saint's erudition came into play.  When Ptolomy insisted Africa could not be circumnavigated, he was reacting to an account in Heredotus that Phoenician sailors had already achieved this in the reign of Pharoah Necho, an adversary of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.  Modern research has confirmed both the possibility and plausibility of Heredotus' account of this incredible seventh century BC voyage.  Other accounts hinting at undiscovered countries south of the equator exist in Greek and in the eighth century, Ireland led the west in its knowledge of Greek.

Someone of Fergal's learning and interests would have been aware of this corpus as well as extensive writings in Irish and Hiberno-Latin on the same topic.  The Navigatio Brendani is the best known, but it is not unique.   Like the tale from Heredotus, it was only conclusively shown to be possible in the 20th century.  The Venerable Bede, St Isidore of Seville and St Jerome all mention the Antipodes.  It was on the authority of the latter that St Fergal based his defence.

There was a work in circulation at the time named the Cosmographia by Aethicus Ister.  This alluded to life in the Antipodes in sections attributed to St Jerome, though Jerome's authorship of any of the book is now disputed.  Fergal returned to Salzburg vindicated, but many now hold he was the sole author of the Cosmographia, which is also unlikely. 
First Austrian school
Fergal was eventually consecrated as Archbishop of Salzburg in 766.  He astonished his contemporaries by undertaking a 33 by 66 metre cathedral in 769 which was completed in 774.  Following Irish practice, he established a cathedral school.  This was the first known school on what is now Austrian territory and its foundation precedes the Bavarian Council's decree on schools in 774.

At this stage, Fergal was well advanced in what proved to be his life's work: the conversion of the Slavs in the Carinthian Alps.  This area, inhabited by peoples we now call Slovenes, extended from southern Austria to Slovenia to northeastern Italy.

The Slavs came into contact with Christianity as they moved westward.  St Columbanus preached to them in the seventh century.  Fergal began his earnest mission.  He baptised Duke Chetimar in Chiemsee.  He consecrated Modestus and sent him with 13 companions to Carinthia.  Modestus established his diocese at Maria Saal, dying in 763, but Fergal continued to supervise the missionary work until his own death.

After that, not even a heathen rebellion following Chetimar's death could reverse evangelisation.  Fergal's successor Arno came to an agreement with Patriarch Paulinus II of Aquileia on diocesan boundaries enabling the completion of this work, but Fergal was known as the Apostle of Carinthia ever after.  He also sent missionaries to many unknown parts - including what is now Hungary.

Fergal maintained an active life into old age, falling ill while preaching near the River Dravo in Carinthia.  He died on November 27, 784.  He might well have been forgotten as Bavaria was absorbed into the Frankish kingdom in 788.  However, St Fergal's tomb was rediscovered when the cathedral was destroyed in 1181.  This renewed interest and devotion to the dead archbishop who was canonised by Pope Gregory IX in 1233.  More relics of St Fergal were discovered after the Allied bombing of Salzburg during the Second World War.  His feast is on 27 November, though some Germany dioceses commemorate him with St Rupert on September 24.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 77, March-April 2005

Judging Latin Book by "Coptic" Cover

JUDGING LATIN BOOK BY ‘COPTIC’ COVER
by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Ex Aegypto vocavi filium meum (Matt 2, 15, cf Num 23, 22)

Treasure from the Bog: Uncovering the Mysteries of the Fadden More Psalter. RTÉ/National Museum of Ireland. 52 Minutes

ONE OF THE most remarkable discoveries of the past decade was the Psalter uncovered in the bogin Fadden More, North Tipperary in July 2006. The Psalter is dated from approximately 800 and is one of the very few books of its age preserved with its original binding intact. The conservation of the manuscript is largely down to the painstaking labour over a few years of John Gillis of Trinity College, Dublin. The television film under review was very interesting and showed the identification and the preservation of the psalter in an entertaining manner. From this point of view, it is well worth a viewing. The contributions of the various scholars are enlightening, though I wonder why Thomas Cahill, author of the feel-good book How the Irish Saved Civilisation was chosen as an interviewee.

It was necessary for the programme to contextualise the discovery in the Irish Church of the day. Though I would have differences in emphases with some of the scholars who spoke, there was nothing misleading presented in the course of the show by any of the academics or Museum archaeologists interviewed. I would have more problems with the type of conclusion drawn by the producer voiced by the narrator.
The first papyrus
To come to the point, the attention focussed on one very important feature. When the bulk of the work was done, it was discovered that the inside of the binding was the first discovery in Ireland of papyrus. This was not to be expected given the climate in Ireland. Egypt’s dry climate is ideal for papyrus; this is found less commonly and in poor condition on the continent; and in Ireland, it was never found at all until this one case. In the course of his conservation work, Mr Gillis visited San Gallen to view similar manuscripts. Following the confirmation that the cover of the psalter did indeed contain papyrus, he went to the Coptic museum in Egypt to examine their book-binding practices, which were remarkably similar. Which prompted the deduction that definite proof connected the early Irish Church with the Coptic Church of Egypt.
 

First we need to be careful about the noun Copt.  It is derived from the Arabic qubt, which is based on the Greek word for Egyptian, Αἰγύτιοι. The Copts are ethnic Egyptians where as most Egyptian Moslems are Arabs in origin. In time this came to have a particular denominational meaning. The Coptic Church is monophysite: it holds that Christ has one nature. There is some diversion as to whether this means that Christ was solely divine or whether by nature was a fusion between the divine and the human, but essentially it believes Christ has no separate human nature. It is noteworthy that the Director of the National Museum, Dr Patrick Wallace was much more nuanced in his approach and spoke of the “monastic church of Egypt”. Though the monophysite position was defined by the Council of Chalcedon in 450 and debated long before that, it took centuries to take shape and it was some time before it was a unanimous position among Egyptian Christians. Likewise, RTÉ uses the term “Roman Catholicism” to refer to a denomination which has never described itself as Roman Catholic. Initially the Church used the designation “Great Church” and after the Great Schism, the western Church referred to itself as Latin Christendom. The term Roman Catholic seems to have been invented by Anglican theologians to designate the Catholic Church as it became after the reformation.  So the application of either term in the context of either Ireland or Egypt in the early ninth century can be misleading.
Desert Fathers
Even without the trace of the papyrus in the manuscript, we can say that there was an Egyptian influence on the early Irish church. The early Church in Egypt left a mark on all Christianity, or at least on any Christian denomination with a role for monasticism. This would exclude most of the Protestant world, but from the High Church wings of the Anglican and Lutheran communions through to the Assyrian Church of the East, there is a plethora of churches in which monasticism has a central importance.  This has been the case since St Anthony of Egypt became the first monk in the third century, following the example of St Paul of Thebes, who was the first acknowledged hermit. Both men were venerated in Ireland, appearing in literature, on high crosses and in many other contexts which marks their special significance. There is no doubt that the spirituality of the Desert Fathers made a deep impression on the Irish Church, which developed as a strongly monastic church to an extent that it took until the 12th century to set up an universally accepted diocesan structure, paving the way for the episcopal church we are acustomed to now. In this way, one appreciates the claims of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox (i.e. Churches which reject the Council of Chalcedon on various grounds, and who are not in communion with Constantinople nor Moscow; nor necessarily with each other) that the early Irish church was one of them more than similar assertions from Anglicans or Presbyterians.

Of course the development of the Irish Church, and the Egyptian influence on it, was a lot more complex. Firstly, geographical and political factors played a part. In the absence of towns, Ireland was more suited to the development monasteries associated with the tribal federations who ruled Ireland. The Desert Fathers provided a tremendous inspiration in the absence of a cult of martyrs. But the most important source of this influence was not directly from Egypt, but through the Church in Gaul. Gaul was a centre of Greek and Alexandrian influence up to and after the evangelisation of Ireland and figures such as St Martin of Tours bowed to the example of Ss Paul and Anthony. The life of St Martin by Sulpicius Severus was as widely read as the life of St Anthony by St Athanasius. St Patrick was considered the nephew of St Martin, as he was also believed to be St Mel’s uncle. To understand this, we have to understand the importance of the nephew in Irish ideology, specifically the “sister’s son”. Cú Chulainn was the son of Conchobair MacNessa’s sister, as many of the heroes had this relationship with the kings they served, so the poetry of Bláthmac, an eighth century monk, explains the incarnation in terms of Christ being the “sister’s son” of all mankind, the nephew of Man.  The early Irish monks did not literally believe St Martin was St Patrick’s uncle, but rather used the relationship to stress the spiritual descent of the first patron. In other words, that Irish Christianity was derived from Gaul.
Egyptian influence in perspective
This is not to deny the Egyptian influence, but rather to put it in perspective. As Gaul suffered the barbarian assaults (already evident in St Patrick’s lifetime), Gaul became less important and the Irish Church developed a life of its own which would gradually spread through the whole of Europe. It continued to take inspiration from Egypt and elsewhere, Syria and Armenia included. But this appeal was not unique to Ireland. St Anthony was venerated across Europe at the time. St Augustine, mentions both Ss Paul and Anthony in his Confessions and very much imitates them in his monastic legacy. Many centuries after the decline of the Coptic Church, the Russian monastic pioneers imitated the desert spirituality in Russia’s vast wilderness. Though Ireland had no desert, the old Irish dísert came to mean a retreat away from population. But we would get a wrong impression to think this was unique to Ireland, even n the Latin West.

The Egyptian church found other ways of expanding its influence. First of all, Egyptians who accepted the hypostatic union had to go elsewhere. Secondly, Egypt’s monasteries became the prey of multiple attacks from pre-Islamic Arab raiders from the fourth century on. Finally, the Islamicised Arabs supplanted Egyptian autonomy and very soon, the Copts were a minority in their own country. All this meant that there was a steady stream of refugees from Egypt and some of these found there way to Ireland.
Oriental influences
The appearance of a Coptic cover on an Irish psalter is nothing which should cause surprise. The blue pigmentation in other manuscripts is lapis lazuli, which is imported from the Middle East. No one suggests a strong Persian influence in Irish Christianity though. The more important point is that the Fadden More Psalter, like the Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow, is written in Latin, as are all texts of the canonical scripture or liturgical importance, together with a great deal of sacred and secular literature in contemporary Ireland. One could argue about the knowledge of Greek in Ireland of the time. There is no doubt that it was known and that it was probably more widely known here than elsewhere in the West, but it never assumed anything near like the importance that Latin had. In this context, it is harder to make a strong case for a particularly close link between Ireland and the Churches of the East, exclusive of any relationship with our sister Churches in the West.

Nevertheless, the programme made one important point. Christianity was established in the Middle East and in its early centuries was divided over three continents. As such it was far from a uniform body, which meant that a church in the far West such as Ireland could absorb oriental influences in addition to the Latin and Gallican stamp that was left on the church. But the programme makers were unable to bring the consequences of this home. In the first place, building so much around the fall of Rome in 476, when the eastern Christian world would say that the Roman Empire continued to exist until 1453, was very much in keeping with the western view of history.  It is interesting nonetheless that everyone accepts the decline of Rome in secular terms from the late fifth century and few correlate this to the increasing importance of the Roman Church through the same period. Secondly, though the programme stated the Coptic Church is thriving, it did not acknowledge the difficulties faced by Copts in their home country right up to the recent martyrdoms in Libya nor the even worse situation of Christians of ancient churches in other Islamic countries. A Christianity which flourished while our own ancestors worshipped idols was to disintegrate due to internal dissension and external persecution over many centuries. It is certain that these churches, particularly that of Egypt, left a mark on the Irish Church among other churches. But it would be a mistake to assume that this was a pre-eminent influence above all others. That is what the programme tries to do.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 136, January-February 2015

Father Standun's Obsession

FATHER STANDÚN'S OBSESSION

by JOHN HENEGHAN

SOBAL SAOL. By Pádraig Standún.  Cló Iar-Chonnachta.  224pp.  €12.00

IN this novel we see more of the constant occupation of Pádraig Standún with sexual mores.  This time we are dealing with a separated couple in the Gaeltacht.  Máirtín Mac Cormaic, a writer for a soap opera, is constantly under pressure to find new themes for Béal an Chuain; if he fails he will lose his job.  Justine, his separated wife also features.  The only thing they agree on is their love for their son Cian.

The contemporary life of the Gaeltacht is contrasted with the lifestyle in times gone by, now on its last legs.  We see further evidence of Standún's obsession with the sexual theme in the description of both Máirtín - who has a one-night stand with Sinéad after a night's binge drinking - and Justine's weekend trip to Cork with James McGill.  To say the least this recurring theme is not edifying.  It is ironic that it should come from a celibate male priest who should uphold the teaching of the Church.

The pub is used as a social instrument to give a glimpse into the lives of the characters.  These are not developed, however, and function solely to perpetuate the main theme of the novel.  Máirtín manages to pick up some themes for the soap opera by buying a senile old man some drink.

The teaching of the Church is challenged, with Máirtín's mother Bríd committing suicide because of her fear of ending up in a nursing home.  So the current lifestyle in the Gaeltacht is contrasted with the old-fashioned values now only left among some old people - and evern this ebbs away with Bríd's suicide

The whole work is another variation of the writer's usual tune.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 84, May-June 2006.

Rev Pádraig Standún is a priest in good standing of the Archdiocese of Tuam.  He has written several novels in the Irish language about life in the Connemara Gaeltacht.

An Insular Look at Irish Catholicism

AN INSULAR LOOK AT IRISH CATHOLICISM

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

IRISH AND CATHOLIC? Towards an understanding of identity.  Edited by Louise Fuller, John Littleton and Éamon Maher.  The Columba Press, Dublin, 2006.  256pp

A CAMEL could be a horse designed by a committee.  One would think that 16 academics might do better on the topic of Irish Catholic identity.

The phrase "Irish Catholic" rolls off the tongue easily, but neither word follows from the other.  As the universal faith, Catholicism does not mix with any particular ethnicity.  It is the very contrary of what Judaism is to the Jews or the Armenian Apostolic Church is to Armenians.  Nevertheless, Catholicism has left its mark on a great many nations, regions and peoples globally - of which Ireland is one.

This is why I find this book puzzling.  Why is France the only other model of a Catholic nation/culture with which Ireland is compared? It is probably true that most Irish Catholics, if asked to name a number of Catholic countries, would mention France, Spain, Portugal, Italy or Poland.  Though Ireland has much in common with each of these, they are not the best comparisons.  Four have long histories as sovereign Catholic states, whose Catholic communities have had to learn to live with major anti-Catholic influence since the 19th century.  The fifth was so big that none of its occupiers tried to impose another faith upon it and its 45 years of communist persecution did not come near what its neighbours suffered.
Netherlands and Quebec
The better models are less obvious.  For example, the Netherlands.  The Dutch Church was a minority that withstood centuries of persecution, to be one of the most religious societies in Europe, producing more missionaries in absolute terms than any other country.  The Dutch Church collapsed in the 1960s.  Outside Europe, Quebec was a similar example - an oasis of Catholicism in North America until the "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s.  This saw Quebec go from being one of the most Catholic cultures on earth to being one of the most secular.

Where is the contrast?  Irish Catholicism, like Dutch and Quebecois Catholicism, is a case of a persecuted people who collectively and successfully resist that persecution.  But the resistance is based on a strong community effort - and when people collectively fail, that is it.  It will be interesting, maybe terrifying, to see how Lithuania copes with western secularisation.  Further removed are Bavaria and Slovakia, where Catholicism was a strong badge of regional identity in the face of oppression (Prussia and the Czech lands respectively), but this was not sustained for such a long time in either case.

That is personal opinion - the contributors don't deal in such analysis.  So their response to the particular crisis in Irish Catholicism, or the relationship between Ireland or the Irish and Catholicism is made in isolation.  Ireland is not even properly defined.  It appears to me that most contributors use it to mean the territory of the independent Irish state, ignoring the Catholics in the North, for whom the identity as Irish Catholics is a lot more important than south of the border.
Mother and Child Scheme
In respect of the Catholics in the South, there are many question marks.  I would ask the next commentator who refers to the Mother and Child Scheme two questions:

• Why was this piece of legislation passed without substantial amendment in the administration immediately following the First Inter-party Government? (Yes, I mean the Fianna Fáil administration led by Éamon de Valera).
• Why do commentators, particularly liberal churchmen, never mention that Noel Browne had a theological advisor - Rev. Professor P. Francis Cremin?

I could add more. For example, one of the reasons de Valera lost power in 1948 was the manner in which Fianna Fáil handled the striking national teachers.  This group normally voted Fianna Fáil.  In the course of the dispute, the government ignored entreaties by John Charles McQuaid.

Similarly, the 1937 Bunreacht an hÉireann is presented as an unequivocally Catholic document.  It is nothing of the sort.  Essentially it is the application of Anglo-American constitutional tradition to Ireland.  It does contain some very theological-sounding language in its human rights clauses.  But there are secular schools of natural law which use similar language.  The American Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, all of which had a huge influence on de Valera's republican movement, often used the same sort of language.

Landmark Supreme Court cases draw on American precedents in constitutional cases - not on Apostolic Signatura judgements.  Right now, the United States Supreme Court, with its Catholic majority, probably takes more from Thomism and the Irish Supreme Court probably looks more to the Enlightenment.  The Constitution in each country is what their respective Supreme Court says it is.  I officer this as a criticism of the view that the constitution is ipso facto a Catholic document.
Example to other countries
The Constitution is a deocument in which we ought to take a great deal of pride.  It is the oldest constitution in use in any state in which the human rights articles are part of the original document.  In 1949, Adenauer looked to the Irish Constitution as one of the models for the German Federal Constitution.  At roughly the same time, Nehru used it as an important model for the Constitution of India.  Somehow, I think this needs to be pointed out.

If the contributors do not see the constitution in context, neither do they see other facets of Irish and/or Catholic life in context.  More than a few contributors refer to the problems of sexual and physical abuse by priests and religious.  I deny neither that this is a major problem nor that the response of dioceses and religious congregations has been inadequate to say the least.

However, if one were to do a vox pop on the streets of major Irish cities, I would bet that many people perceive paedophilia as exclusively a problem of Catholic clergy and religious.  In fact the rate of offence is pretty consistent across all religious denominations, and offence by clergy (including rabbis, imams, bonzes, etc) is but a small percentage of the total.  This is something opinion makers should point out.

I suppose the most fatuous remark in the book comes from Dr Colum Kenny:

It is my belief that there is little evidence that the media in general was ever hostile to the Catholic Church in Ireland.  (p.98)

I cannot accept this - though I would agree with Dr Kenny's thesis that the media cannot be primarily blamed for the current crisis in the Catholic Church in Ireland.  When Mrs Margaret Heckler was stepping down as United States ambassador to Ireland in January 1989, she singled out the manner in which the Irish media dealt with the Church for special mention.  Others have repeated this: Damien Kiberd, former editor of The Sunday Business Post; and Dr Desmond Fennell come to mind.  Father Brian McKevitt OP has concerned himself with this problem for more than 20 years.

There were two Opinion pieces in The Irish Times about the Drogheda Mass [ie. Mass on Easter Sunday 2006 in the Augustinian Church in Drogheda, where the principal celebrant, Rev Iggy O'Donovan OSA invited the local Anglican rector to concelebrate with him and his two confreres] by another contributor to this book, Patsy McGarry - one after the Mass itself and then again after the apology [Fathers Iggy O'Donovan, Noel Hession and Richard Good were required by the Augustinian provincial to apologise to Cardinal Brady, in whose diocese the Mass took place, for their public breach of canon law in doing so].  This sort of partisan approach is seen across the whole media.  Views of people such as David Quinn are the exception which proves the rule.  Mr McGarry's own contribution essentially makes the point that the Catholic Church was nice and liberal until the Famine, but that then it became overly prudish and controlling.
Political correctness
What academics do to appear sophisticated is too predictable.  So when Eugene O'Brien deals with Father Ted and deconstuction, he seems to derive pleasure in repeating a four-letter word.  The comedy was discussed in this Review by Joe McCarroll, who pointed out it is was little more than a rehash of the drunken Irishman and the idiotic Irishman, but that they put on clerical collars to make it more politically correct.

There is nothing new about satirising clergy.  Even Dermot Morgan had an earlier clerical persona, Father Brian Trendy.  Some of us remember the insufferable Leave it to Mrs O'Brien, in which the central character was a priest's housekeeper.  The parish priest there was played by Pat Daly, who himself featured in Hall's Pictorial Weekly as Canon Romulus O'Dowd.

Long before the advent of electronic media, priests featured in jokes and folktales.  Not all were complimentary and some even had teeth.  But the extent to which these academics would rely on folklorists and/or anthropologists to demonstrate the evolution of Father Ted.... I would have thought deconstructionists would have an interest in this.

In relation to literary criticism, what the contributors are determined to see in a collection of second-rate writers, I am not sure.  It is true that good points are made by three of the analysed writers - John Broderick is noted as having hated the new Mass; Brian Moore wrote a novel, Catholics, about a monastery off the south-west coast continuing to use the old Mass, but the novel is a vehicle to express the disappointment of Ireland's Massgoers at the liturgical changes.  This would be a very interesting point to examine: in particular why, in spite of so much discontent, no formal traditional movement emerged in Ireland until much later.

Patsy McGarry makes a very fair point, which needs development, that the changes shook the older generations' faith.  They continued to practice out of cultural habit, but the younger people detected a shock.  I believe this was true, and I am waiting for some analysis of the monies spent on re-ordering of churches in the face of widespread objection - in spite of the fact that the Second Vatican Council provided no mandate for such changes.  I think this, rather than Humanae Vitae, ate into religious practice.  It is true that reaction to Humanae Vitae kicked in later, but not immediately.

This brings me to a third author in the survey - Dermot Bolger.  There is no doubt that Dermot Bolger is a liberal who broadly accepts the sexual revolution as a good thing.  But he also loves to shock.  In his earlier writings, he attacked Catholic icons.  Now, he uses religion to make his secular audiences uncomfortable.  But he does raise questions about the present direction of Irish society.  The only other contributor who raises this question is Father Patrick Claffey SVD.  Father Claffey gives a reminiscence of his formative years in Co Roscommon prior to joining the Divine Word Missionaries and leaving Ireland, then his experience on return.  Father Claffey gives no nostalgic account of the past, but does give a critical view of the present.
Missed opportunities
This book is filled with missed opportunities.  It is easy, and even popular, to dismiss the past.  It is a lot more important to criticise the present.  The contributors fail to do this.  They fail to address the question of Catholic identity in general and the world-wide crisis of identity  among Latin-rite Catholics.  This is because they approach Irish Catholicism in isolation.

Though it is true that the concept of Irish identity which was popular between independence and the outbreak of the Northern Ireland conflict was very narrow and even flawed, the contributors fail to criticise the absence of a common view of Irish identity ever since, or how patriotism devolved into following the triumph (or otherwise) of international sports contestants.

Northern Ireland need not exist for all the attention it gets in this volume.  And if you thought the book was directed at an educated readership, Father John Littleton gives a translation of all the Latin terms he quotes in his article.

One of the contributors adapts a line from Frank McGuinness's play Innocence, about the artist Caravaggio: "I have looked on God and found him lacking".  To paraphrase both, I read the book...and found it lacking.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 84, May-June 2006.

I have added notes in square brackets to explain the significance of the Drogheda Mass referred to above which was current when this article appeared.

Oliver Plunkett: A Saint Betrayed by his own

OLIVER PLUNKETT: A SAINT BETRAYED BY HIS OWN

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

In proprio venit et sui eum non receperunt-St John, 1, 11

SEÁN Ó RIORDÁIN'S poem Fill Arís contains one memorable line: Dún do intinn ar a tharla ó bhualadh Chath Cionn tSáile (Close your mind to what happened since the defeat at Kinsale).  The Battle of Kinsale in 1602 marks the beginning of the end of the Gaelic Order in Ireland.  Gaeldom, at least in Ireland, was necessarily Catholic.  When Gregory XIII introduced the calendar reform in 1582, this was accepted throughout Catholic Europe, including the courts of the O'Neill and the O'Donnell.  So as Mountjoy's troops fought the Battle of Kinsale in December 1601 under the old style which England would continue to use until 1752, the more advanced Gaelic Irish and their Spanish allies engaged them in January 1602.  The fact that the Julian date of 1601 is impressed upon our minds indicates the extent of the Protestant victory.

In 1607, the Ulster princes left Gaelic Ireland leaderless.  From then on, most initiative would fall to the Sean Gall or Old English, the descendant of the Anglo- and Cambro-Norman who maintained Catholicism and as a result were only now coming to terms with the Irish identity.  These Hiberno-Normans were adept at the law and parliamentary procedure and used both quite well until they found themselves outwitted by Lord Deputy Thomas Wentworth.  However, Wentworth was deposed in 1641 due to a temporary coincidence between Irish Catholic and Presbyterian interest which suited an increasingly assertive English Parliament for the time being.  After Wentworth, things got worse.

Confederation of Kilkenny

The Gaels could not bear it and proceeded with the 1641 Rebellion, unfortunately missing their objective of taking Dublin Castle.  This was followed in 1642 by the inaugural meeting of the Confederate Catholics of Ireland, better known as the Confederation of Kilkenny.  The Catholic Confederacy was the most incredible gathering of Irish clergy and laity in modern Irish history.  It sat as a parliament, raised an army and even chartered a university in Limerick.  One could dream about the possibilities, but Gael and Norman clashed with each other and no one took the bigger picture of the civil wars raging in England and Scotland into account.  When Charles I was executed in 1649, the Confederacy was doomed.

In 1646, the original papal envoy  Father Scarampi left Ireland to make way for the incoming Nuncio, Archbishop Rinuccini.  This was shortly after the great victory of Owen Roe O'Neill at Benburb and Ireland was full of hope.  Scarampi took a number of young men with him to study for the priesthood in Rome.  One of these was Oliver Plunkett.

Oliver Plunkett was born in Meath in 1625.  He came from an old Norman family and many of his relatives were titled nobility, both Catholic and Protestant in persuasion. One of the 19th century Anglican Archbishops of Dublin was a relative, as was George Noble Count Plunkett, the first Foreign Minister and his better known son, the executed rebel Commandant Joseph Mary Plunkett. This was in the future.  The young man was tutored by his cousin, a Cistercian priest named Patrick Plunkett who held the title Abbot of St Mary's (Dublin) and who subsequently served a as Bishop of Clonmacnois and then Bishop of Meath.  At the age of 16, the student was judged to be ready to attend seminary in Rome.
Cromwellian Settlement
The Protestant ascendancy set up Trinity College in 1591 to provide for the education of young men of promise.  The Catholic recusants found the Counter-Reformation seminaries a lot more sympathetic and within a century, several Irish colleges sprung up on the continent.  Oliver Plunkett went to the Irish College in Rome, studying in the Roman Jesuit College, in Propaganda College and in the Sapienza.  His ability was recognised, and he spent most of his early priesthood teaching theology in Propaganda, while holding the office of a consultant on Ireland to the Roman Curia.  Ireland was going  through one of the worse periods in her history.  Cromwell laid waste to the country in his brief military campaign and his generals continued this.  The Cromwellian Settlement, colloquially summarised in the phrase "to hell or to Connaught" saw Catholic ownership of the land fall from 60% to about 20%.  For all that, the settlement was not nearly  as thorough as the Ulster Plantation of 1609.

Cromwell died in 1658 and the Commonwealth fell in 1660, but the restoration of Charles II was not to signal the return to the status quo ante.  In the words of Jonathan Swift:

Those who cut off the father's head, forced the son to fly for his life, and overturned  the whole ancient frame of government...gained by their rebellion what the Catholics lost by their loyalty.

There was to be no significant alteration in Ireland to what it had been under the Commonwealth.

In 1669, Oliver Plunkett was appointed to the vacant primacy.  He returned to Ireland on March 17, 1670 following a clandestine consecration to the episcopacy in Ghent.  The firs duty he had in Ireland was pastoral and over the next four years, he confirmed nearly 50,000 people of all ages - some as old as 60, and often in the open air.  He turned to the topic of education.  At a time when the Protestant establishment was all-powerful and no Catholic order was more despised than the Society of Jesus, he succeeded in establishing a Jesuit college in Drogheda.  Drogheda, notwithstanding the Cromwellian slaughter on 11 September 1649, was the second largest city in Ireland at the time.  Within a few months the school had an enrollment of  150, forty of whom were sons of Protestant gentlemen.  The school lasted a few years until its closure and destruction.

Though it was over a century after the Council of Trent, intermittent persecution in Ireland delayed the effective implementation of the Council decrees.  Archbishop Plunkett found this problem when he came to Ireland and set about correcting it.  This was his undoing.  Laxity in clerical discipline was subject to exaggeration, but nevertheless the conduct of some Irish priests left a lot to be desired.  Secondly, there was an age-old dispute between regular and secular clergy which made church government difficult.  Finally, a dispute arose between Dublin and Armagh in relation to the primacy.
Guerrilla warfare
Disciplinary problems within the Church took place in the background of one grave pastoral problem.  Many of the dispossessed Irish gentry took to the continent to join any of several armies.  Some stayed at home and conducted a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the British administration and those who now occupied their lands.  These Rapparees or Tories varied considerably between those who acted from the highest patriotic motives to those who degenerated into simple highwaymen.  However, they uniformly made the lot of the common people worse and present the Irish hierarchy with a problem.

Synod after synod condemned them, but Oliver Plunkett negotiated with the Tories in an effort to resolve the impasse.  Many priests working in the Armagh Archdiocese denounced the Primate for colluding with the authorities while the Archbishop of Dublin, Peter Talbot accused him of drawing too close to the felons.  The Primate had considerable success with his talks - many Tories left the country to join continental armies - but when a notable Rapparee, Patrick Fleming was killed by government agents in 1677 while travelling under Oliver Plunkett's safe conduct, many criticisms were made.

Oliver Plunkett sough to implement the Council of Trent reforms in Ireland.  A century of intermittent religious persecution made this difficult.  A proportion of the clergy led scandalous lives and the Primate went far beyond his diocese.  The Vicar Apostolic of Derry, Terence O'Kelly, was a notable offender, and he successfully used the civil processes to frustrate any attempt to bring him to book through the Praemunire clause.  Here, Archbishop Plunkett used his political skills to outmaneuver the wily prelate. At the same time, several priests - diocesan and religious - were censured for grave deficiencies in their ministry and personal lives.  This made the Primate many enemies.

The relationship between the members of religious orders and the diocesan clergy had been very difficult from the days of St Patrick and this was something Oliver Plunkett did his best to address.  However, there was a dispute between the friars of the Franciscan and Dominican Orders.  The Franciscans argued the Dominicans should not be invited into the Armagh Archdiocese.  The Primate disagreed and extended the invitation, earning him the enmity of the very powerful Franciscan order.

The contemporary Archbishop of Dublin, Peter Talbot, came from a noble family associated with Malahide Castle (his brother, Richard, was later Duke of Tyrconnell and would serve as James II's viceroy).  Archbishop Talbot was aware of the growing importance of Dublin in Ireland and proposed that the Archbishop of Dublin should be primate.  Archbishop Plunkett answered with a tract defending Armagh's position.  Talbot responded to this and both tracts were published on the continent.  This was the beginning of a long-standing dispute between the two metropolitans.
The Popish Plot
If we focus on the internal politics of Irish Catholicism in the 1670s, we should not forget that the overall position of the Church in Ireland was precarious to say the least.  Just how delicate the situation was became apparent when Titus Oates hatched the infamous "Popish Plot".  Oates was a former Anglican minister with a history of trouble-making who had briefly studied in the English Jesuit colleges oin Valladolid and St Omer.  In 1678, he hurled wild allegations against Catholics in Britain and Ireland.  Nothing might have happened had not certain prominent anti-Catholics chosen to use this material.

The Popish Plot unleashed a new persecution against Catholics with saw Archbishops Plunkett and Talbot thrown into prison, with many others.  At this point the two were reconciled as Oliver Plunkett defied the guards to administer the last sacraments to Peter Talbot, as he died a martyr's death.

The Successor of St Patrick was to follow.  It was alleged that Oliver Plunkett had plotted to bring a French fleet into Carlingford Lough with an army of 15,000 men as part of the general conspiracy to overthrow Charles II.  A trial in Dundalk collapsed as a Protestant jury refused to convict the archbishop, so he was brought to London.
Clemency refused
There is one point which must be commented upon in Oliver Plunkett's trial.  Four of the prosecution witnesses were priests active in the Armagh archdiocese, two of whom were Franciscans.  It is a mystery how the Primate did not challenge his accusers, but long incarceration seriously damaged his health.  Following the trial and conviction, it was said he was already dead before he might have suffered from the more brutal elements of execution by hanging, drawing and quartering.

The action of priests against the Primate is a testament of how unwilling many Catholics were to accept the Tridentine reform, particularly priests.  There is a contemporary satire, Comhairle Commissarius na Cléire, which is believed to mock Oliver Plunkett and his work (and the author is believed to have been a priest).  Also there were many demands for clemency which Charles II refused to heed, one coming from the Earl of Essex who originally arrested him.  Charles told Essex he would have done more good by testifying at his trial.

Oliver Plunkett was executed on 11 July 1681 and was canonised by Blessed Paul VI on 10 December 1975.  His shrine at St Peter's Church, Drogheda, Co Louth attracts a steady stream of visitors.  His life and work continue to have revelance to our own day.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 86, September-October 2006