CHURCH, The. Although the in troduction of Christianity into Ireland is usually reckoned from the mission of Saint Patrick, there is ample evidence that it had found its way there much earlier, probably through intercourse with Britain and the Con tinent. Palladius, a bishop of Britain, was sent in 430 by Pope Celestine to the Scots believing in Christ,* but he accomplished pratically noth ing and returned to Britain almost immediately. Two years later Saint Patrick, who had been consecrated bishop by the same Pope, arrived in Ireland with authority to preach Christianity and established the hierarchy. He landed in Wicklow and traversed the entire country; he baptized the ard-ri, or high king, and many of his subjects, and achieved his mission with comparative ease and without bloodshed. His first native priests and bishops were chosen from among the chieftains, brehons (judges), ollays (poets) and other leading men of the people, add they were ordained and consecrated with but little training. But with the organization of the hierarchy completed, he established schools, the first at Armagh, under Benignus and others at Kildare and Louth. By the end of the 5th century these schools were sending forth trained priests. By the 7th century paganism had dis appeared and the old bardic schools had been supplanted by the monastic schools.
The activities of the Irish Church may be traced along two distinct lines — the mainte nance of the faith in Ireland, and the spreading of the doctrines of Christianity in other lands. The missionary work of the Irish monks from the 6th to the 10th centuries, and, even later, was wide-spread on the continent of Europe, and even as far away as Iceland. The up heaval in Europe following the downfall of the Roman Empire had left Ireland practically un touched, and monastic schools there continued to flourish and send forth missionaries to the barbarous nations that had overrun southern and western Europe. Saint Columbanus, Saint
Gall and many others went through the Con tinent evangelizing in spectacular Celtic fashion, and establishing monasteries which became in time centres of learning and industry.
In the 6th century Saint Columba and a few companions crossed to Caledonia and es tablished the monastery on the island of Iona, whence they went to evangelize the Picts in the north of Britain. From Iona, too, went Aidan and his companions to work among the Anglo-Saxons. Practically all of Saxon Eng land, except Kent, was won to Christianity by the labors of Irish monks, and the monasteries of Whitby and Jarrow in Northumbria, estab lished by them, were the schools which pro duced the first literary efforts of Christian England.
In Ireland the monastic schools multiplied and continued to flourish until the time of the Reformation. Protestantism made little head way there and although the churches and mon asteries were confiscated and turned over to the Established Church, and the proscriptive laws caused great hardships, the Church has maintained its hold on a large majority of the Irish people.
need only be noted that these points of differ ence are in minor matters of practice, while in the essential matters, the unity of doctrine and the unquestionable authority from Rome under which Saint Patrick established the Irish Church, the evidence contradicts the theory of a separate origin.
Bibliograp_hy.—Montalembert, 'Monks of the West' (Vol. IV, books 11 and 12) ; Bury, 'Life of Saint Patrick' (London 1905); Healy, 'Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars' ; D'Alton, 'History of Ireland' (New York 1907) • Zimmer, 'The Irish Ele ment in Medieval Cukure) (tr. Edmands, New York 1891).