by John Healy

“ AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY AND THE IRISH CHURCH.
We have now to consider how the Irish Church came to be moulded by exterior influences. Up to the present our attention has been confined to such developments as took place independently. The Irish Church, as we have seen, stood alone beyond the reach of the revolutions and controversies that produced such changes in other parts of Christendom. It is a remarkable fact that it was her own missionary enterprise that first brought her within the sphere of foreign influence. The peculiarities of the Irish Church were well known. ”

“ In one respect the Britons and the Irish were very different. The former had carried their hate of the Saxons so far as to deliberately withhold from them any knowledge of the Christian religion. 'We will not preach the faith,' they said, 'to the cruel race of strangers who have treacherously driven our ancestors from their country, and robbed their posterity of their inheritance.' The Irish, on the other hand, were in the full enthusiasm of missionary enterprise ”

“ The work of Augustine was confined to the southern part of the country, and even there his success was more apparent than real, and has been magnified by succeeding writers, who considered it a matter of conscience to ignore or disparage any missionary effort that did not draw its inspiration from the Church of Rome. The whole enterprise depended on the enthusiasm of the one man. ”