Irish History: People, places and events that built Ireland

Patrick: myth and reality

Few historical figures loom larger in Irish history than Patrick: patron saint, evangelist, and politician. He grew up in late Roman Britain, early in the fifth century AD. The standard stories speak of his capture by Irish slavers, who brought him to Ireland. Here he was put to work as a goatherd for some years before eventually making his way home to Britain; later, the adult Patrick returned to an ostensibly pagan Ireland to spread the Good News, and convert the Irish to Christianity. As we know, some of this story is untrue, for Christianity had established itself well before Patrick’s arrival, but his ministry was influential. He was a vigorous and skilled communicator, for example deploying the existing Irish practice of worshipping gods in groups of three in order to explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. He had, moreover, political skills absent in Palladius: he was able to enlist the powerful Irish kings to his cause, thus rapidly building a following across the land. By the time of his death late in the fifth century, Christianity had imprinted itself indelibly across the land.

Pilgrimage

The silvery peak of Croagh Patrick rises to 764 metres, and overlooks the island-flecked expanse of Clew Bay in west County Mayo. The mountain is nicknamed the ‘Reek’, and it has long been a significant place of pilgrimage in Ireland. On Reek Sunday – the last Sunday in July each year – thousands of walkers (some of them barefoot) climb the mountain and attend a Christian service in the small chapel on its summit. The Reek itself owes its importance to Patrick – the saint is said to have spent forty days fasting on the mountain in AD 441 – and the summer pilgrimage has survived for centuries. Nor is Croagh Patrick the only significant place of Patrician pilgrimage in Ireland today. County Donegal is home to St Patrick’s Purgatory on Station Island in Lough Derg, which similarly has been a sacred site for hundreds of years. Patrick’s remains are said to lie in Down Cathedral in County Down; and a statue of the saint stands on the Hill of Slane in County Meath, where Patrick is said to have lit the Easter Flame, or Paschal Flame, thus ushering in the age of Irish Christianity.

‘Saints and Scholars’

The collapse of the Roman Empire in western Europe may not have led to the ‘Dark Ages’ of myth, but it did contribute to a steep decline in cultural activity and written records. In Ireland, conversely, these years saw a startling flowering in creativity – the result of the spread of Christianity and the establishment of great monasteries across the land. As the existing oral culture gave way to the written word, so copious records began to be kept detailing every aspect of life. In scriptoria up and down Ireland, monks created the famous ‘illuminated’ manuscripts, which stand today as exemplars of Ireland’s status as a place of ‘saints and scholars’. The monasteries fulfilled many significant functions: they maintained social stability; provided housing, health services, and places of incarceration; acted as places of education; and, not least, fuelled economic growth, as they directed and channelled the agricultural output of their district. Such great monasteries as Clonmacnoise, on the river Shannon in County Offaly, were famous across Europe, and from its quays, goods flowed across Ireland. The abbots of such institutions became key players and arbiters of power and authority on the local political scene.

Glendalough

The highland valley of Glendalough in County Wicklow, with its twin lakes and its glorious backdrop of granite hills, is today one of Ireland’s most prominent tourist attractions. It has been significant in Irish history since the sixth century, when St Kevin established a place of hermitage here, and settled into a life of contemplation and prayer. Kevin’s reputation for piety and austerity drew pilgrims to the valley, where a monastery and seminary were established. Following Kevin’s death c. 618, the settlement flourished for centuries. The site today contains significant monastic remnants, which testify to the size and scale of Glendalough at its height: most famous is the great round tower, which dominates the valley. Kevin is a man for all ages, and today his life is interpreted as one of environmental awareness. Seamus Heaney’s famous poem ‘St Kevin and the Blackbird’ responds to the folk legend that describes the saint sitting in contemplation, arms outstretched, when a blackbird settles in the palm of his hand, nests, and lays her eggs. Rather than disturb the bird, Kevin remains in his position ‘until the young are hatched and fledged and flown’.

Dál Riata

The seas surrounding Ireland were far from being a barrier to trade, communication, and human interaction. Quite the opposite was the case: they enabled a flow of goods and people over the centuries – and this fact is made manifest in the form of Dál Riata, a kingdom that spanned the channel between western Scotland and the Irish province of Ulster. The origins of Dál Riata lie in the early centuries of the first millennium, although the precise facts remain unproven. For many years historians posited the idea of an Irish conquest of south-west Scotland. Today, however, theories favour the idea of an essentially organic evolution of the kingdom, as the natural result of a kinship between two closely related territories. This latter theory underscores the sense of relative ease of human communication and travel across the seas. Dál Riata was an important centre for maritime trade. It endured as a kingdom until the eighth century, when military and political changes in both Ireland and Scotland led to its gradual eclipse and disappearance from the records, and the rise of the kingdom of Scotland in its place.

Colm Cille

The centuries-long closeness between Ireland and Scotland is best encapsulated in the history of St Colm Cille. He was born at Gartan in County Donegal in 521, and his life captures the mingling of civil authority, ecclesiastical law, and politics that shaped the society of the time. Colm Cille founded the great monasteries at Derry and Durrow, before leaving Ireland to establish the monastery on Iona, at the heart of Dál Riata territory, and he was a key player in the politics of that kingdom. Having established his power base on Iona, the saint took to intervening in the governance of Dál Riata. Such was his influence that a summit was convened in 575 between the leaders of Dál Riata and the Uí Néill, who governed much of the north of Ireland. The result of the summit was an agreement that Dál Riata would formally bind itself to the Uí Néill, thus establishing a kingdom spanning the seas. As for the cultural legacy of Colm Cille’s Iona, this was immense. The exquisite Book of Kells was begun here; and it was from the island that other missionaries went forth to establish monasteries at Lindisfarne, and further afield.

Columbanus in Europe

As the culture and politics of Ireland influenced Britain, so they influenced Europe too. In these years, many Irish peregrinari, or wandering monks, travelled the continent, imprinting specifically Irish influences on European life, and the first and most famous of these was St Columbanus (540–615). Columbanus comes down to us as a distinctly forbidding individual, for he was given to a life of fearsome austerity – including starvation rations and limited sleep – the better to conquer the intrinsic sinfulness of his human nature. Born in the province of Leinster, he studied in the monastery at Bangor in County Down, before departing for exile in France. Here he founded three monasteries, complete with tonsured monks and a stricter-than-strict code governing every conceivable aspect of life. However, his dauntless attitude to life and scorn for authority – he even picked a fight with the Pope of the day – led at length to his banishment from France, and years of further wandering. His last and greatest monastery was at Bobbio, in what is now northern Italy, but at least sixty such institutions were founded in his name, and generations of his monks fanned out across Europe, disseminating Latin literature and knowledge in the process.

The Irish language

Irish – Gaeilge – is an ancient tongue, one of the oldest languages in Europe. Its beginnings are shadowy but, by the beginning of the first millennium, it was spoken across Ireland, with closely related tongues used in Scotland and the Isle of Man. Evidence of the first written Irish script comes in the form of Ogham: fourth- and fifth-century stone carvings still to be found today across Ireland; later, scholars adopted the Latin alphabet for written Irish. Ireland today is officially a bilingual state. Under the Irish Constitution, Gaeilge holds the status of ‘first official language’; it is also an official language of the EU. In visual terms, it is ubiquitous: to be seen on every road sign, and on all state documents; and study of the language is compulsory throughout the school system in the Republic of Ireland. In practice, the language has dwindled over the centuries: today, its everyday use is largely limited to Gaeltacht areas along the Atlantic seaboard. However, in Northern Ireland and in urban areas in the Republic, where Gaelscoileanna, or Irish-language schools, are increasingly popular, the language is witnessing something of a revival.

Skellig Michael

The most extraordinary – and remote, and elemental – of Irish monasteries was the settlement on Skellig Michael (Sceilg Mhichíl), a crag of rock that lies in the Atlantic some seven miles west of County Kerry’s Iveragh peninsula. The twin-peaked silhouette of the Skellig, as viewed from the mainland, is one of the most evocative of Irish sights. The island is a World Heritage Site and an important and abundant bird sanctuary; and it has recently gained new global fame as the hidden hermitage of Luke Skywalker in the latest Star Wars films. The Skellig has a venerable history, for at some point between the sixth and eighth centuries AD, monks crossed from the mainland to found a settlement in this extreme environment. The monastery was established on a terraced slope 180 metres above the sea and a hermitage was built below the island’s south peak. The settlement endured until the twelfth or thirteenth century and remained a place of regular pilgrimage in the following centuries. Today, visiting is possible in the summer months: flights of stone steps lead from a landing place to the monastic remains, with their characteristic ‘beehive’ cells and tremendous ocean views.

Illumination

The so-called ‘illuminated’ manuscripts are the greatest cultural glories to have emerged from Ireland’s early Christian era. These were books, on vellum, richly decorated with elaborate borders and illustration. Many cultures through the ages have created such ‘illuminated’ books: the Irish variety included reproductions of Gospel and other Biblical stories, and the best known of them today is the Book of Kells. This manuscript was written in Latin, and it brings together all four Gospels, plus an assortment of other texts, into one vast book. It is ornately decorated with swirling motifs and images of humans, birds, and beasts, and is richly and lavishly coloured. The Book of Kells was created around AD 800, probably on Iona. It is likely to have been completed in the abbey at Kells in County Meath, and it remained in Kells until 1654, when it was sent to Dublin, where it has been held in the Library of Trinity College since 1661. But the monks of Ireland did not limit themselves to sacred texts: everything from classical myth to the Táin – the great Irish myth cycle of Cúchulainn and Queen Medb – was similarly included in a new and burgeoning literary culture.

‘Heathen men’

The end of monastic Ireland’s glory days can be dated precisely to AD 795, when the monastery on the island of Rathlin was sacked by ferocious raiders who came over the sea. These were the Vikings – the Norsemen – and the first sighting of them in British waters had been two years previously, when their ships had appeared off the shores of the famous Northumbrian monastery at Holy Island, or Lindisfarne. Now these Vikings – as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gloomily put it, these ‘heathen men’ who came with ‘rapine and slaughter’ – were in Ireland, and their impact would be immediate, profound, and long-lasting. In the years after the Rathlin attack, coastal and island monasteries were attacked again and again, and their treasuries plundered. Iona came under assault in 802 and 806, and gradually many monasteries were abandoned, with communities moving inland to find safety. Such security, however, was not easily achieved: the light, shallow-draughted Viking ships could sail as easily on the rivers of Ireland as they could along its coasts. Soon Vikings were scouting the river Shannon and establishing bases on inland lakes. The great inland monastery at Clonmacnoise was torched in 835.

The Viking presence

These Vikings are popularly remembered as bloodthirsty marauders, invariably out to loot and pillage, but it is important to remember that the history of these years was written by the monks, who were not disposed to look kindly on the Norse and their activities in Ireland. And indeed, the truth is that there is a great deal more to the history of the Vikings in Ireland than bloodshed and violence. They traded as much as they raided – raided for Church booty (altar treasures and jewelled bibles); traded in jet, glass, and leather, and in slaves – and, as is the way with invaders, they gradually settled in Ireland, intermarried, and became players on the domestic economic and political scene. They established settlements at Limerick, Cork, Youghal, Wexford, Arklow, and Waterford, and these grew rapidly into thriving towns and ports with wide trading connections across Ireland and further afield. And, significantly, many monastic settlements continued to exist alongside Viking bases, thus complicating the idea that when the Norsemen arrived on the scene, the monasteries were always burned and the monks driven out. This is history underpinned by human impulses, not merely of violence, but of economic necessity, interdependence, and love.

Dublin

This ‘human history’ is best exemplified in the development of the city of Dublin. Settlements had long existed on a ford across the river Liffey and on the shores of a nearby dubhlinn – a black pool – in the river Poddle. In 837, a fleet of sixty Viking ships sailed up the river, and the newcomers established a stockade and base in the area, and put down roots. Doubtless there was violence – and the presence of a defensive wall hints that the Vikings by no means had everything their own way – but the evidence suggests that Christian churches in the district continued to function, implying that the newcomers were as ready to trade as to raid. Indeed, Dublin in time became an entrepôt in a vast Norse trading network with tentacles that reached into the Arctic, the Mediterranean, western Europe, and Russia. Walrus tusks and furs, wine, gemstones, and silver were traded through the city; the slave market throve; local jewellery began to show the influence of symmetrical Norse decorative motifs; and Irish traders made use of Viking middlemen to trade their animal hides and timber abroad. This was a new city, and a new world.

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