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themselves under the protection of the English bishops, as being Normans—never, amongst the several abuses alluded to, is there the slightest reproach made on the non-observance of ecclesiastical celibacy. And this happened after the Danish invasions. By these invasions the bands of discipline were relaxed, the sanctuary was profaned and deluged with blood,[1] the cloister was rifled, the primatial see was usurped by laymen for nearly two hundred years[2]—and yet, after the storm had blown by, the Irish Church on the whole was found pure. Wherever immorality entered the sanctuary, it was not without trouble the tide was stayed or the evil stopped. To do so, required the efforts of popes, and often they had to sink into their graves before their work was done. It- might have been completed by their successors, but never without noise and without an effort. No noise was made, no trace of an effort by Rome, to bring about a thorough harmony of feeling and practice in reference to ecclesiastical celibacy in the Irish Church. And as surely as there may be a necessity for such a step, so surely would it be accompanied by noise or resistance.
In fair play, however, I will bring forward the only objection worth notice against the celibacy of the ancient Irish Church. It is the strongest I have ever met with, and my line of reading brought more under my notice than probably fell in the way of Mr. Whiteside. It is given by d’Acherry, by Martene, and by Sir James Ware (Opuscula Scti. Patricii). It runs thus: “If any cleric, from the doorkeeper up to the priest, shall be seen without being habited in his tunic, in order to conceal his nakedness, and if his hair be not shorn according to the Roman manner, and if his wife walk forth with unveiled head, let them be despised by
- ↑ Armagh was plundered eleven times by the Danes, and burnt five times.—Archdall.
- ↑ St. Bernard’s Life of St. Malachy.
