Fr Conor McDonough
One of the consequences of the Brexit negotiations and the possibility of a ‘hard border’ between the North and the Republic of Ireland is the resurgence of the idea that Ireland and Britain, or, more narrowly, England, are eternally in opposition, with the latter typically dominating.
This opposition is a major element of our imaginations, national and individual, as I discovered when I moved to England to study, at the age of 17. I had never been particularly nationalistic, but when I found myself among the English I suddenly became evangelically Irish: banding together with fellow Irish, explaining the rights and wrongs of Anglo-Irish relations to my largely uninterested English friends and borrowing every available book in the college library that had anything to do with my homeland.
We might imagine that studying the complex common history of Ireland and England will always lead to the nurturing of our national inferiority complex, but I’ve found that this isn’t always the case. If we take a peek into history beyond the proverbial ‘800 years’, we find that our relations were for several centuries characterised, broadly speaking, by a sense of equality, respect and fraternity.
In the second half of the first millennium, the monastic worlds of England and Ireland were constantly intertwined and interdependent. English-speakers and Irish-speakers had a shared Christian culture with similar outstanding features: the production of beautiful books and accurate calendars, a love of language, the assiduous study of the Scriptures and high standards regarding monastic life.
The shared desire for excellence in all these areas made for very soft borders indeed, as contemporary writers pointed out.
The historian Bede writes that many Englishmen in the mid-7th Century were travelling to England “for the sake of study or to live a more ascetic life”. They would travel around the monasteries of various famous teachers where, he said, they were welcomed warmly by the Irish, who “gave them their daily food, and provided them with books to read and with instruction, without asking for any payment”.
Oracles
Aldhelm (639-709) writes too of “fleetloads” of English students who travel to Ireland to study grammar, geometry and the ‘honeyed oracles’ of the Bible. There was such a ‘brain drain’, in fact, that Aldhelm feels it necessary to write to a young Englishman, Eafrith, who had spent six years studying in the “wintry regions” in the north-west of Ireland, reminding him drily that there was learning available in England too…
But the traffic wasn’t all one-way. The 7th-Century king of Northumbria, Oswald, sent for an Irish bishop when he wanted his people to become Christians (he himself having been exiled in an Irish kingdom as a boy, and been baptised and schooled there), and when the bishop, Aidan, arrived, he preached to the Northumbrians in Irish, and the king – himself schooled in an Irish kingdom – offered a live translation from Irish into English!
When, in the 9th Century, various regions in Europe began to unite under Charlemagne, it was entirely natural for this emperor to ask scholars from Ireland and England to found and run the schools under his care. One of them, Alcuin, an Englishman, had an Irish teacher, wrote letters to English monks in Mayo, and was succeeded by an Irishman, John Scotus Eriugena. These men were part of a monastic network of learning in which Irish and English were beloved brothers and respected collaborators.
None of this undoes the painful side of Anglo-Irish relations, but it does help us think beyond the paradigm of everlasting opposition. And for Christians, followers of the one who taught us to love our enemies and who gave us the “ministry of reconciliation” (Col. 5:18), these hope-making lessons from history are precious indeed.
Great chance to learn about the Book of Kells
Among the cultural gems of this period of insular history is, of course, the Book of Kells, a lavishly illustrated Gospel book, made somewhere in Ireland, Scotland or England (or all three), around the year 800.
The book, now held in the library of Trinity College Dublin, is the subject of a new, free, online course taught by TCD lecturers (see futurelearn.com for details).
The course is very accessible, engaging, and is full of beautiful videos and images. It’s only available for a few more weeks, so sign up soon!