The assumption that we can intuit the past from the present is often wrong. Even factual summaries of the past can be misleading if too concise. Most people are casually aware that Ireland has been overwhelmingly Catholic since the 500s. Though right they might be, some important nuances are missing.
Take for instance: most people are aware that Henry VIII of England’s discontent with the Catholic Church centred on divorce.
Who would guess then, that the Gaelic Kings of Catholic Ireland in the same era practiced divorce freely and regularly? Who would guess that even priests in Ireland frequently married and divorced too?
Celtic Christianity
Of course, the modern day church and modern day Ireland shed very little light on Christian Ireland of the past.
Not only was Irish Christianity different to Roman Christianity, but even within Ireland, secular law and canon law occupied very different roles in Irish society.
Centre of Authority / Differences with Rome
First of all, Irish Christianity’s centre of authority was not Rome, as was the case on the Continent. Rome had a spiritual authority with the monks and saints, but not a direct authority with the Irish people.
A lot of attitudes and ideas originating on the continent were either filtered out or adapted to the Irish mindset. In this way, Irish Christianity developed along different lines to the Roman tradition.
Perhaps the earliest example of this is St. Patrick’s Confessio. An document he made in defence of his breaking of church tradition[tk]
Perhaps suitably, this would define Ireland’s relationship to Continental Christianity, establishing religion as something more pragmatic than dogmatic.
Hierarchy
Interestingly, continental church ordered the systematic appointment of bishops to go on conversion missions. Ireland had no structured hierarchy. Instead, our highest authorities went out on self-imposed exiles. Through this practice, we get St. Columbanus, John Eriugena, Colm Cille and St. Patrick (who though not Irish, founded the Irish tradition). People famous not for the office they held, but respected for their great influence.
Relationship with the Church
The most obvious sign that Ireland stood outside the European tradition was perhaps the area of marriage.
The Church law in Ireland didn’t allow for divorce. But it was accounted for in secular law, and that most people (one source says 95%) opted for secular marriages over religious marriages perhaps says something about the Irish relationship with relgious matters.
Another example was that the death penalty, while featuring regularly in Church law, did not have much sway in secular law which favoured more restoratative sentences.
Of course, this is reflected in the Irish penitential tradition which is practiced by all Catholics the world over.
Monolithic View
At the centre of these differences was that continental authority was derived from Rome, which viewed Christians as a monolithic entity separated only by matters of hierarchy.
The church was a single unified entity which was always concerned with enforcing its laws broadly and uniformly across every place it had influence. The Irish tradition held itself more as an extension of native secular life, capable of being adapted on the local level.
John Eriugena himself expressed this when he said that authority is justified by reason, and so, canonical law must be backed up by secular reasoning.
Suitably, John Eriugena was vilified by the Roman church who declared his writings to be full of “worms of heresy”. But perhaps his expression of pragmatism over dogma explains why Christianity here was so different to that in Europe, where it has gone largely uncharged in the 1500 years since.
And perhaps it’s not so out-of-character that most Irish people lead a very secular life while proudly identifying themselves as Catholic.