Those in Northern Ireland, who in political terms would promote a Irish Republican, Roman Catholic point of view, tend to glory much in the Celtic culture. They have claimed that culture as their own and have reflected the modern Roman Catholic Irish culture upon it. But history is not as simple as that. For example the ancient Celtic Church was very far from the modern Roman Catholic Church. Indeed there is evidence that the ancient Celtic church hated Roman Catholicism more vehemently than most modern Protestants do today.
The evidence is that Christianity came to the British Isles at a very early period. Britain was a far flung outpost of the Roman Empire but the evidence is now clear that, before the Romans left Britain, Christianity had come to England. In 1997 the coming of Augustine to Britain was celebrated as if he had brought Christianity to Britain but Christianity was there long before that. Some of the earliest evidence of Christianity in Britain was discovered in 1949 in Lullingston Park in Kent. Two hundred years ago some workmen had been working and they discovered some prettily coloured mosaic tiles but it was not until 1949 that the archaeologists started working at it. Before they finished they were to discover the first archaeological evidence of the Christian gospel taking root in the far flung corner of the Roman Empire. The archaeologists found that the Villa had been occupied by a number of people. It had started off as a simple flint and mortar house and a number of people lived there but between AD 330 and 360 a new generation converted the villa into a luxury holiday home and went to great expense in laying magnificent mosaic floors. Even more importantly they erected a small Christian chapel. Its walls were decorated with an early Christian monogram and it had figures of six figures with their hands raised in prayer. Before they found this they thought the influence of Christianity had been very small in Britain but the find confirmed that Christianity had come to the British Isles at a very early period.
About 100 years later in 429 there was a delegation that was sent from the Pope to Ireland under a man named Palladius who was a Gaul and a disciple of Germanus of Auxere. He was also probably Archdeacon of Germanus. But this Roman Catholic mission did not succeed. Palladius sailed from Gaul, landed in Wicklow, preached in the neighbourhood and was expelled by the natives. He was then driven northwards by a storm and shortly afterwards died in Britain. This was the first attempt to found a church in Ireland and it was a Roman Catholic attempt but it did not succeed.
The Church that was founded by Patrick was not in connection with Rome. In his writings , his "Confession" and His "Epistle" to a Welsh Prince called Coroticus, there is no mention of any authority given to him by the Pope nor is the Pope mentioned at all. This would be a strange omission if it was the authority of the Pope that he depended on. Patrick, whose father was a deacon and whose grandfather was a priest was captured as a youth and brought to Ireland. He tended sheep on Slemish Mountain but managed to escape his slave master. Later however, he had a strange vision calling on Him to preach the gospel. The mission of Patrick was successful. He founded many Churches across the island each of which had a bishop( or elder) placed over it. The Church he founded was very different from Roman Catholicism today. In Patrick's own writings, which are the only reliable source to judge his life, there is no trace of mariolatry and no mention of the Pope. The Bible was little read by Roman Catholics at that time but Patrick knew it well. As to celibacy his own Father and grandfather were ministers but they were married. He never mentions confession or purgatory and there is no glorification of the mass. There is no doubt that the church founded by Patrick was very different from Roman Catholicism today.
Later the Irish Celtic Church had a time of great missionary activity. Men like Columba and Columabanus and Gall and others went into Europe with the gospel message. But as the time went by the influence Popery grew in Europe and spread into Britain. But as Roman Catholicism spread there is evidence that there was a resistance of Rome by the native churches of Britain and Ireland. One of the great evidences is in the dispute over the date of Easter which was a big debating point in the Church around 500-600 AD. The Church of Rome had, in 457 introduced a new way of calculating the date of Easter which embraced a cycle of five hundred and thirty two years. The Irish Church had received with St. Patrick and it's first teachers the old Jewish and Roman cycle of 84 years. But when Augustine came to Britain in about 600 AD it is obvious that the Irish Church had never, until then, heard of the new cycle that had been introduced by Rome in 457. You would have thought that if there was a connection between the Irish Church and the Church of Rome they would have heard of the new way of calculating Easter within a hundred years.
But Augustine tried to impose the new way of calculating Easter on the ancient British Church. In the year 603 Augustine assembled the Bishops of the Celtic Church near the river Severn at a place later called Augustine's Oak and demanded conformity with the customs of Rome but they resisted. Augustine died and was succeeded by Laurentius as Archbishop of Canterbury. There is a letter from Archbishop Laurentius which is extant. Professor George Stokes, the one time Professor of ecclesiastical history in the University of Dublin quoted from the letter,
"becoming acquainted with the errors of the Britons, we thought the Scots (Irish) had been better; but we have been informed by Bishop Dagan coming into this aforesaid island, and by the Abbat Columbanus in France, that the Scots in no way differ from the Britons in behaviour; for Bishop Dagan coming to us not only refused to eat with us, but even to take his repast in that same house where we were entertained."
So the bishops of the Irish Church were so opposed to Rome that they would not even eat in the same house as the Romanists.
But as time went on the proximity of Southern Ireland to the Continent and Britain led to a contact which began to undermine the old Irish customs and Romanism began to come in. Ireland had from earliest times been divided in two and had been divided broadly by the curious chain of sandhills which rise at the Green Hills near Tallaght and terminates at Galway Bay. At first the Irish customs were undermined in the South by continental intercourse with the Continent. It was not without battles. Fintan Abbat of Taghmon in Wexford who was an Ulster man defeated Laserian who wanted to bring in Roman custom in a synod which had been called to discuss the matter. But with all the opposition roman custom gradually came in.
But those who glory in the Celts and impose modern Roman Catholic Irish custom on them are very far from the truth. Many of the Celts were are opposed to Rome as Protestants today.

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