A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — CompleteMcGee, Thomas D'Arcy
History
A Popular History of Ireland : from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics — Complete
McGee, Thomas D'Arcy
Ireland -- History
Franciscan, Chaplain to King Edward II. of England, and Professor at
Oxford; by the Danish Dominican, Gotofrid of Waterford; and above all,
by John Scotus of Down, the subtle doctor, the luminary of the
Franciscan schools, of Paris and Cologne. The native schools of Ireland
had lost their early ascendancy, and are no longer traceable in our
annals; but Irish scholarship, when arrested in its full development at
home, transferred its efforts to foreign Universities, and there
maintained the ancient honour of the country among the studious
"nations" of Christendom. Among the "nations" involved in the college
riots at Oxford, in the year 1274, we find mention of the Irish, from
which fact it is evident there must have been a considerable number of
natives of that country, then frequenting the University.
The most distinguished native ecclesiastics of this century were
Matthew O'Heney, Archbishop of Cashel, originally a Cistercian monk,
who died in retirement at Holy Cross in 1207; Albin O'Mulloy, the
opponent of _Giraldus_, who died Bishop of Ferns in 1222; and Clarus
McMailin, Erenach of Trinity Island, Lough Key—if an _Erenach_ may be
called an ecclesiastic. It was O'Heney made the Norman who said the
Irish Church had no martyrs, the celebrated answer, that now men had
come into the country who knew so well how to make martyrs, that
reproach would soon be taken away. He is said to have written a life of
Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, and we know that he had legantine powers
at the opening of the century. The _Erenach_ of Lough Key, who
flourished in its second half, plays an important part in all the
western feuds and campaigns; his guarantee often preserved peace and
protected the vanquished. Among the church-builders of his age, he
stands conspicuous. The ordinary churches were indeed easily built,
seldom exceeding 60 or 70 feet in length, and one half that width, and
the material still most in use was, for the church proper, timber. The
towers, cashels, or surrounding walls, and the cells of the religious,
as well as the great monasteries and collegiate and cathedral churches,
were of stone, and many of them remain monuments of the skill and
munificence of their founders.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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