Confessions of a Hedge Witch

[text copied in its entirety from irish folklore list
to be used by me for future research]

>Getting back to the Christian conversion of Ireland: It was a process and
>conversion did not happen overnight. There were few permanent settlements,
>people remained quite mobile and scattered. Missionaries had their work cut
>out for them. - fg

An interesting process at that. One thing I would say is that I don't really
regard it as a 'conversion' because 'having a religion' probably entered
Ireland along with Christianity. The likeliest channel would be south west
Britain where the Irish had established a short-lived kingdom and it is
likely that intermarriage, migration from Britain to Ireland, and perhaps
even the Irish in Britain adopting the Christian faith while there, were the
key factors in establishing small Christian communities in Ireland. 

It is important to remember that the early post-Apostolic Church had no
organized or official approach to non-Christians and conversion was a matter
for the individual. Christian teachers were moving among the converted from
household to household and conversion was sporadic and individual rather
than communal. In the 5th century Palladius was sent to be the first bishop
'ad Scottos in Christum credentes' ('the Irish believing in Christ'). 

From the book Early Medieval Ireland 400 -1200 by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín:

"For the earliest period we are only guessing, but it is reasonable to
presume that the organization of Christian communities would have been along
the lines as the organization of Christian communities elsewhere in the
West. A structure of dioceses was probably envisaged, doubtless with the
intention ultimately of establishing provinces and a regular hierarchy of
bishops, priests, deacons, and the other ecclesiastical grades.
Unfortunately, there is a large gap in our historical sources between the
fifth century and the late sixth/early seventh century, the period of our
earliest surviving ecclesiastical legislation, and though the later canon
law collections mention bishops and dioceses as apparently established
structures and offices, we have no way of knowing how many bishops existed
and how they administered to the Irish church."

also:

"The writings of Patrick - our only contemporary source of information -
present an altogether less rosy picture of the first days of the church in
Ireland. Several times he remarks on the physical dangers faced by him and
his followers and states quite candidly that it was necessary to purchase
the goodwill and protection of the local kings and their brehon lawyers
(illi qui iudicabant, Conf. 53), that body of professional jurists whose
remit was the preservation and interpretation of the laws. He claimed in his
own defence against detractors that he had expended the price of fifteen men
on such things, but even so, he and his followers were in mortal danger on
more than one occasion. The Christian message was not everywhere
enthusiastically received; many of his flock 'endured persecution and lying
reproaches from their parents' (Conf. 42).

Life was particularly difficult for the women among them: 'they who are kept
in slavery suffer especially', he says, and the general impression is one of
intense hardship and suffering. Patrick seems to have concentrated
particularly on the conversion of women in Irish society, urging a life of
celibacy on the unmarried and discouraging remarriage of widows (Conf. 42).
In this he was, of course following a pattern established by the early
church, and the strictures made on the first Christians were doubtless
repeated in the Irish case. From the earliest Christian times it was a
constant refrain among anti-Christian writers that the church's doctrines
gained credence only with a public unable to tell truth from nonsense; they
were believed in only by children, slaves, and especially women. Opponents
of Christianity charged that the church's teachings were offered most often
to the uneducated and by people of low standing in the community. Patrick
refers (Conf. 41) to the 'sons of the Irish and daughters of chieftains',
and it may well be that his message was addressed principally to the young
and to women.... he recounts also how the women converts used, of their own
accord, to present him with their little gifts, placing their personal
jewellery on his altar (Conf. 49), causing scandal in the non-Christian
community and also among the Christians, doubtless because some felt that
Patrick was abusing his position to make money - a charge which his own
strenuous denials prove was widespread." 

Unfortunately Patrick's testimony only provides spartan details about the
native cults he encountered. He claims the Irish were sun-worshipers but
describes Christ as the Sol Invictus. He says that they worshiped 'idols and
abominations' but provides little in the way of description. Personally I
lean to the view that paganism was not defined as a body of words and
orthodoxy with set rituals either in Antiquity or in pre-Christian Ireland.
I think there was a traditional grammar of actions that might be performed
perhaps at a particular time or place that seemed significant, or perhaps in
a time of need. I think that votive and thanksgiving offerings were made. I
think there would be a sense of tradition that different communities would
pass down what they thought had worked for them in ensuring good harvests,
good health, etc. and that keeping a piety to tradition was important. 

I am reminded of what Seneca, the Roman philospher of the 1st century, wrote
on Roman religion:

"If you have ever come upon a dense grove of ancient trees rising to an
unusual height and blocking the sight of the sky with the shade of branch
upon branch, the loftiness of the forest, the solitude of the place, and the
marvel of such thick and unbroken shadow out in the open generate belief in
a divine presence. And any cave where the rocks have been eaten away deep
into the mountain it supports, not made by human but hands but hollowed out
into a vast expanse by natural forces, will suggest to your spirit some need
for religious observance. We venerate the sources of great rivers: the
sudden eruption of a tremendous stream from its concealment causes altars to
be built. Hot springs are worshipped and darkness and immeasurable depth
renders certain pools sacred."

and Apuleis tells us that:

"It is the custom of pious travellers, whenever they comes across a sacred
grove or holy place along their way to make a vow, offer fruit and sit for a
while."

Going back to to Ó Cróinín:

"The earliest Christians cannot have been numerous or influential enough to
constitute a source of political power; as we shall see shortly, the
evidence, such as it is, suggests that kings and aristocracy were
conspicuously resistant to the new religion. That is not to say, however
that the Christians were anonymous and unseen. There is no reason to doubt
that in Ireland, as in every other country where Christianity was
introduced, zealots took to the high-roads and criss-crossed the countryside
smashing the symbols of the rival religion and looting its temples: 'There
is no such thing as robbery for those who truly possess Christ'. There was
ample evidence in the experience fo fourth-century North Africa and the
Eastern provinces that looting and smashing the physical edifice of all
competing cults 'could produce solid results, though not absolutely final
ones'."

Tellingly we can see in the c. 700 Life of St Cuthbert where the Irish have
set up a monastery in Northumbria the reaction to the natives there when
some monks are swept out to sea in a sudden storm the crowd of onlookers are
said to have jeered at them 'qui communia mortalium iura spernentes, noua et
ignota darent statuta uiuendi' ('because they had despised the common law of
mortals and put forth new and unknown rules of life') and when rebuked by St
Cuthbert they were said to reply 'qui et ueteres culturas hominibus tulere,
et nouas qualiter obseruare debant nemo nout' ('Let no man pray for them,
and may God have no mercy on any one of them, for they have robbed men of
the old ways of worship, and how the new worship is to be conducted, nobody
knows'.

Muirchú's Life of St Patrick renders a supposedly native prophecy poem into
Latin and a later Life presents the same poem in Irish. It is possible that
it represents native sentiment

Across the sea will come Adze-head,
crazed in the head,
his cloak with hole for the head,
his stick bent in the head.

He will chant impiety 
from a table in the front of his house;
all his people will answer:
'Amen, Amen'.

So we can see that the process whereby Christianity came to Ireland was
probably a complex one and as Ó Cróinín says:

" 'He will utter impiety', Muirchú adds (incantabit nefas), which was
doubtless the view of non-Christians in the face of demands that they
abandon their own gods and adopt the Christian one. The stark reality of the
new religion with its single god who destroyed all others, given to
outbursts of divine wrath and prone to vengeance and punishment, may very
well have seemed impious to a people more used to a variety of deities and
to the toleration of many cults."

I think that this is a key point because Christianity offered a new grammar
of rituals and actions that people could adopt and turn to (even in the 8th
century we can find invocations to Goibniu and Dian Cécht), but it also
added the idea of an orthodoxy and defined what aspects of ritual and
everyday life were acceptable within a Christian life and which ones were
pagan/diabolical. It is interesting to note the various attitudes adopted to
the gods/spirits we see in early texts. There was much debate as to their
nature and whether they were good/neutral/evil but rarely is there doubt
that they had been real and believed in by people. They are normally
portrayed as powerful whether through divine agency, through having learned
magic or through demonic agency but of course we know that they seem to have
survived all of this to come down to us in some very important texts and up
to modern times in popular belief.

-Ts