The Study "of Irish History

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 37, 20 September 1923, Page 11

The Study "of Irish History

IRELAND AND ROME. There is a special reason for including an article on the subject of Ireland and Rome in our course of early Irish History. The reason is this: Not only did England persecute our fathers for being true to the ancient Faith, but, with a refinement of cruelty, the Protestant historians assorted in the face of history that the old Irish Christians did not recognise the authority of the Pope. Thus, while Protestant English soldiers hunted down our people because they were true to Rome, Protestant English liars told them that they were fools to suffer for a phantom that Patrick and Bridget and Columcille and the ancient saints of Erin were as really reformers as Luther and that they never owned the supremacy of the Holy See. But the lies were 111 vain. Even the most ignorant of the Irish peasants were better and truer historians than the Protestants, and they laughed in scorn at the attempts to turn them aside from their Faith, remembering that message left them by J atrick: As ye arc. Christians, so be ye also Itomans ! Ireland alone of the western nations escaped the yoke of the Caesars of Fagan Rome; and when she bent he? neck to the spiritual yoke of Christ, it was she alone who was for ever faithful to Rome. Yes, even to safeguard that union she was satisfied to suffer death-pangs as a nation and to resign for centuries her proud place amono--Ihe countries of the world. To Pagan Rome she was indeed defiant and free; but to the Rome of Peter, she was the nimble, faithful, self-sacrificing servant, ever ready to leave all things for the sake of her Master. It was from Rome her Faith came to her; for it was with a. mission from Pop© Celestine that Patrick landed on her shores with the standard of the Cross. And in Ins preaching as in writings, he exhorted the Irish to be faithful to Rome. He followed the rite of Rome when he said Mass; Roman clerics helped him in his work in Ireland; and when he died he left a Nation firmly united in the bonds of love and obedience to Rome. Long before Ireland was converted to Christ, Rome was the Mother Chinch from which all the western churches were evangelised. A century before Patrick preached England was in communion with the Pope and subject to his authority, ever were people more true to Rome than the early Eng,Sh Christians, and yet they, in time, received with open arms monks who came over from Ireland even as teachers and iis hops. England, too; sent scholars.in thousands to study theology in Ireland, so that, thus, England herself is a witness to Ireland’s fidelity to the Popes. We have the ancient Mass-books, and the ancient law-books, and the old theological writings to prove that the Irish Christians were one in belief, in practice, in discipline with Rome. Among our old laws is one immemorially attributed to Patrick, insisting that cases which could not be settled by Armagh were to be sent to Rome, exactly as -might be done in Ireland to-day. We have laws dating from the year 700 laying down the same procedure; and the Brehon Laws considered an injury or insult done to the Bishop of Rome great almost beyond power of atonement. In practice it was the same thing. Columbanus appealed to the Pope against, the bishops of roV ;' n n Vergll . lagainSt 1 againSt St - Boniface. In the writings o St Gall as in the Rook of Doctrines by St. Mochta of Louth appear the very same teachings which Irishmen hold to-day. ■ And what of the ancient Irish missionaries They went forth and taught all over Europe, and that fact alone is enough to show that they taught as Rome taught and were welcomed as Roman teachers were welcomed. In the schools of Clonmacnoise, Muckross, and Ardagh they learned the self-same doctrines as they would have learned in Rome; because of Ireland’s union with Rome which sent her Patrick Here is what St. Columbanus, whose memory Italy is celebrating this year, wrote: .. “We are scholars of SS. Peter and Pend, and of all the disciples, subscribing by the Holy Ghost to the divine Canon; we. are all Irish habitants of the remotest part of the whole world, receiving nothing save what is evangelical and apostolic doctrine. None of us has been a heretic none a Jew, none ay schismatic; but the Faith, just as it v. ns at first delivered by you, the successors of the Holy Apostles; is held unshaken. . . We are hound to the

Church of St. Peter. For although Borne is great and illustrious, yet it is only through this Chair that she is so great and renowned among -as. It was in Rome, where he walked in the footsteps of the Apostles, that Patrick himself imbibed that pure doctrine which he gave to our ancestors; it was in Rome he learned that respect for authority which he .transmitted to nib Spiritual children; it was at the Tombs of Peter and Paul that he was inspired with that zeal- and courage which he in turn inspired in the hearts of the Irish race which remained for ever true to Rome, in spite of dungeon, fire, and sword. v Far down in the south of Italy, the cathedral of St, Cataldus to this day commemorates the purity of doctrine of an Irish monk; on the sunny slopes above Florence you will still hear the name of St. Donatu's, another Irish monk; Bobbio, this year, proclaims the attachment of Columbanus to the Holy See; the Canton of St, Gall in Switzerland is another monument to the same fidelity. And, out of Ireland, in all those distant years, went streams of devout pilgrims, who knelt at the feet of the Pope, just as Irishmen do at the present time. Some times they came back, bringing Roman missals and Roman decrees; sometimes they died on the journey and left their bones in Rome; and sometimes the strangers among whom they travelled kept them to become their bishops and to teach them to love Rome as' true Christians ought, as the Irish did in accordance with the command received from St. Patrick. From out of the fulness of their hearts the Irish pilgrims often uttered noble apostrophes to Rome, their mother and their queen. Such were the verses of St. Fursey, the magnificent Latin of which can only be haltingly reproduced in the cold English tongue: j 0 Noble Rome! 0 Mistress of the World 0 thou of earthly cities 'perfect flower and crown: Glowing thy cheeks with martyrs roseate blood, Radiant thy brow with virgin lilies white. Hail to thee, Queen, thrice hail, 0 golden Rome ! t Blessing and hail eternal on thee wait, And countless ages bow to thy behests I

And, as it was in early ages, so it was in medieval times. No nation in Europe was truer to Rome than Ireland. The legates of Rome were welcomed in Ireland with honor. They presided over Irish synods. Irish money helped the Pope in his struggles against the emperors of the thirteenth century. Irish prelates, like Malachy and Lawrence Toole, were the most active champions of Papal authority. The Middle Ages in Ireland perpetuated the fidelity of the preceding centuries; and, when England, in her pride threw off allegiance to the Pope, all that her armies and her brides could; do were not able to make the Irish follow her ignobleexample. Plunder, fraud, forgery, prison, murder, torture, calumnythey were all tried against Ireland by England, and tried for centuries, in vain. For the sake of her Faith, her Roman Faith, Ireland, once the Island of Saints and Scholars, became the Island of Martyrs and Confessors, suffering the most cruel torments ever inflicted on a Christian people by tyrants in all history. She kept- the Faith then as she kept it when the London Bible Societies offered Bibles and soup to dying mothers and children if they would apostatise. She kept the Faith. That is her proudest panegyric. Through the centuries Ireland bravely bore her cross for the sake of Christ. Her tragedy is the sublimest story in the annals of Christendom. She went through it in pain and sorrow, but her martyrs came out of it laden with the sheaves of victory. From the coming of the Danes who burned her churches, down to the Famine, when the mothers kissed the Cross and died rather than accept the food offered by the English proselytisers, for a thousand years, she never flinched in her fidelity to the Faith which Patrick brought her from Rome. And, after that decade of centuries of blood and tears, she was raised up by God and chosen as of old to be the evangeliser of far countries. She brought the Faith again to England, and wherever the English flag flew and the English tongue was heard, she sent her exiled children and. her young priests to plant the standard of the Cross, and to preach Christ Crucified, just as Columbanus and Cataldus preached it of old. -

She ’ did not, as the lying historians would have it, suffer for a phantom. Better than they, who were cowards and renegades,, she knew the value of pure and undefiled Faith; and pure and undefiled she held it through the ages. Children who study the history of Ireland Try to realise the glory of 'her heroic victory. Try to realise what that Faith is worth for which Ireland endured so. much. You have received through Ireland’s heroism th<y noblest heritage in all the wide world, and you ought to be prouder of-it than of anything else that could come to you in life. It is to make you realise that that we go to great pains every year to induce your teachers to devote some time to the earnest study of Irish History, for it is the history of your Faith and it is rich in inspiration for your lives. Therefore, at the close of our course for this year, we exhort you to remember with pride that for a, thousand weary years the men and women of your race died in order that you should be Catholics to-day, in union with the Pope and the See of Rome, as Patrick was, and as the Church of the Gael was in all ages. Bless those who have gone before you, and pray that by their example and their merits you too may be faithful to death to the Faith of Our Fathers. Through all the world no land more true Than our own old Catholic land; Through ages of blood to the Rock she has stood, Long may she ever stand ! Long may she ever stand!