Home » History » Irish History » Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity

© Lianne Bruynell Lopes

Celtic crosses can be seen all over the Irish countryside, as proud sentinels guarding churches, as grave markers, and in some places, as stand alone monuments to some Irish saint. The Celtic cross is unique, and a beautiful symbol of Christianity in Ireland.

Before the coming of Christianity, the celts ruled the Emerald Isle. They were a pagan group who worshiped the sun as a deity. The symbol of the sun was a disk, often with rays shooting from the center. However, when Christian missionaries took the Gospel to Ireland, rather than brutally stamping out all common symbolism, they Christianized them. They took pagan beliefs and showed the people Christian truths. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took the place of the sun god. His symbol, the cross, was added to the sun disk to form what we now recognize as the Celtic cross.

Christianity, although not readily accepted at first, (as seen by the failure of St. Palladius whose ministry predated St. Patrick's) eventually swept Ireland like a storm. The Celts, passionate people in whatever endeavor they undertook, eventually embraced Christianity with a fervor not often seen in other parts of Europe. Monasteries, churches, and seminaries soon popped up all over the land as more and more people turned from their pagan ways. The Irish Celts so embraced Christianity, they eventually became great world missionaries. St. Columba, who founded the monastery at Iona in Scotland, is one example of this, but there were many others.

Heresies that rocked the Christian church during the fifth and sixth centuries did not take root in the Celtic church, in Ireland or elsewhere in the British Isles. This is attributed in part to the geographic distance of the British Isles from the mainland. But it could well have been because of the fervor of the Celtic Christians to keep to the Biblical truths they had learned. When the Saxons invaded Britain c. 450 AD, Celtic Christianity was almost wiped out in England, and relegated to a few places in Wales and the north of Britain. But the church in Ireland remained strong.

In the coming centuries, at a time in Western European history that has been called the Dark Ages, Ireland remained a light, not only of Christian beliefs, but of history and literature as well. The Celts have been credited with being the main preservers of culture and literature of the western world after the fall of Rome.

The copyright of the article Celtic Christianity in Irish History is owned by . Permission to republish Celtic Christianity in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.