Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3). Bagwell, Richard
left intact the internal government of weaker princes. Borumha, or the tribute-taker, if that be really the meaning of the term, describes his position with sufficient accuracy. When he died Donnchadh, or Donogh, his son by Gormflaith, became head of his tribe, and claimed the succession to the Irish monarchy. The Eugenians repudiated his claim, alleging that their turn, which had been wrongfully passed over, had now come to reign in Munster. Not satisfied with this, their two principal chiefs fell out among themselves. The Ossorian followed suit, and thus Brian’s creation crumbled at once into dust.
More than 150 years elapsed between the battle of Clontarf and the landing of the first Anglo-Norman, and they were years of almost constant war and confusion. Had Ireland been left to herself a prince might in time have arisen strong enough to establish such a monarchy as Brian failed to found. The Danes had ceased to be a seriously disturbing influence, but there is no evidence that any such process of consolidation was going on, and a feudal system, which had lost none of its vigour, was at last confronted with a tribal system which had lost none of its inherent weakness.
It is impossible to fix the exact date when Christianity began to make head against the Irish Ostmen. When St. Anschar obtained from the Swedes a place for his God in the northern pantheon, and when Guthrum and his officers submitted to baptism in Wessex, a foundation had been laid for a general Scandinavian conversion. But neither Norway nor the Norwegian colonies in Iceland, Shetland, Orkney, or the Hebrides, yielded so soon. Irish anchorites spent some time in Iceland about 795, and when Ingulf and Lief landed in 870 they found that Irish priests had lately been there, and had left behind them books, bells, and croziers. The second batch had probably fled from Ingulf’s congeners in Ireland. Olaf Trygvesson, the first Christian king of Norway, was educated at Athelstane’s court, and the nominal conversion of Norway may date from the year of his accession. Five years later, in 1000, Christianity was established by law in Iceland. Removed as she was from English or Roman influences, Ireland remained a stronghold of paganism after the Danes of England had been generally converted; and the Irish being on the whole weaker in war, were scarcely in a position to prove that Woden and Thor had nothing to say for themselves. Olaf Cuaran was baptized in England. It is clear that the Irish Danes remained generally pagan throughout the tenth century, and that the confederacy which failed at Clontarf had to a great extent been formed against Christianity. The story of Ospak and Brodir shows that some of the fiercest Danes were beginning to waver, the question at issue being the relative power of two deities, rather than the relative merit of two systems. After Clontarf Woden seems to have been looked upon as beaten. He had been tried and found wanting, like Baal on Mount Carmel, and the defeated party went over to the stronger side.
The connection of the Dublin Danes with their brethren in England had long been very close, and it was to Canterbury and Rome rather than to Armagh that they naturally turned. Sitric and Canute were perhaps in the Eternal City together; their visit was at least almost simultaneous, and we cannot doubt that every means were taken to prejudice the powerful neophyte against the pretensions of St. Patrick’s successor. An Ostman named Dunan or Donat is reckoned the first Bishop of Dublin, and is credited with the foundation of Christ Church. A tradition which may be true, but which is not supported by contemporary evidence, makes Sitric the joint founder. From an expression in the celebrated letter of the Dublin burgesses to Archbishop Ralph d’Eures it may be fairly inferred that Donat had his succession from Canterbury, and he certainly corresponded with Lanfranc on the subject of infant baptism. He was succeeded by Patrick or Gillapatrick, an Ostman, who was consecrated by Lanfranc in St. Paul’s at the instance of Godred Crovan, king of Man, who was then supreme at Dublin. Godred’s reign is rather shadowy, but Lanfranc’s letter to him has always been considered genuine, and it addresses him as king not only of Dublin, but of Ireland. Lanfranc also wrote to Tirlogh, who had acquired the supreme kingship, like his father, Brian Borumha. It is not unlikely that the curious poem which represents St. Patrick as blessing Dublin and its Danish inhabitants, and cursing the Hy Neill, was forged at this time, partly in the Munster interest and partly to prove that Dublin was not subject to Armagh.25
In his letters Lanfranc insists much upon Catholic unity. According to modern ideas, the heaviest of the charges which he brings against the Irish Church is the levity with which they regarded the marriage tie. It appears that men even exchanged wives. Bishop Patrick promised ecclesiastical fealty to the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Primate of the British Isles. Lanfranc had obeyed the order of his old pupil Alexander II., who was prompted by the deacon Hildebrand, and had gone to Rome to receive his pall. But in his dealings with Dublin he acted independently, and he was ready to give advice to Irish prelates, though without claiming direct jurisdiction over them. In doctrinal matters he was an ally of Rome. Himself an Italian, he espoused the dogma of transubstantiation in opposition to the Irishman Erigena, and the Frenchman Berengarius; and on the great question of clerical celibacy he was a follower, though not an extreme one, of the uncompromising Hildebrand. The ever-watchful Roman Court probably espied the germ of a Western patriarchate, and was thus moved to annex Armagh as a counterpoise to the dangerous primacy claimed under a grant of Gregory the Great by the successors of Augustine. Gregory VII., in addressing the kings, nobles, and prelates of Ireland, took care to claim absolute sovereignty by divine right; and here he ran little risk of such a rebuff as William the Conqueror administered.26
Patrick’s successor was Donat O’Haingly, an Irishman, but a Benedictine monk of Canterbury, who was consecrated by Lanfranc, to whom he had been recommended by King Tirlogh. He was succeeded by his nephew Samuel, a Benedictine of St. Albans, who was consecrated by Anselm. That great archbishop was not altogether pleased with his Irish brother, whom he chid for alienating vestments bestowed on the Church of Dublin by Lanfranc, and for having the cross borne before him, although he had never received the pall. A further element of confusion was introduced, probably in 1118, by the Irish synod of Rathbreasil, which declared Dublin to be in the diocese of Glendalough; and it seems that the Irish inhabitants submitted, while those of Danish origin refused to do so.
On the death of Bishop Samuel O’Haingly, the Irish annals inform us that ‘Cellach, comarb of Patrick, assumed the bishopric of Ath-cliath,27 by the choice of foreigners and Gaeidhil.’ If there be any truth in this it was a bold stroke on the part of Armagh to exercise jurisdiction in Dublin, and was probably the act of the Irish as opposed to the Danish party. In the same year, or the next, the burgesses and clergy of Dublin wrote to Ralph of Canterbury, begging him to consecrate their nominee Gregory. They reminded him that their bishops originally derived their dignity from his predecessors, and that the bishops of Ireland were very jealous of them; and especially he of Armagh, because they preferred the rule of Canterbury. Ralph consecrated Gregory, and he governed the see for forty years. To his lot it fell to receive the pall sent by Pope Eugenius, who was too politic to insist on a visit to Rome. For the moment it was enough to assert the necessity of the pallium and its papal origin. The legate Paparo ignored the pretensions of the bishop whose church in the mountains had the name of city, and divided the diocese into two parts: the bishop with the Cantuarian succession being made Metropolitan, and the Irishman at Glendalough being reduced to the position of a suffragan. St. Lawrence O’Toole, who was the second Archbishop of Dublin, derived his succession from Armagh, and the Scandinavian Church of Dublin ceases to have a separate history.
Of far less importance than that of Dublin, the early history of the see of Waterford is proportionately obscure. Malchus, a Benedictine of Winchester, who seems to have been the first bishop elected by the Ostmen, was consecrated by Anselm; to whom he promised canonical obedience, and with whom he corresponded. It seems likely that he was afterwards translated to Lismore, or he may have held both sees together, as they were held in after years. It is probable that the great Malachi of Armagh studied under him. Maelisa O’Hanmire appears next in succession, but we know nothing of him. He may have represented a reaction against the dominion of Canterbury. The next name preserved is that of Tosti, who was, of course, a Dane, and who assisted in the establishment of the
See Hook’s
The Irish always called Dublin Ath-cliath, or the Ford of Hurdles.