Why The Irish Converted to Christianity?

            I grew up in a very Irish household and assumed that the Irish had always been Christian, but of course, that’s not true. Until the 6th century most Irish people were pagans, worshipping a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses that controlled everything in the natural world, including their harvests. Their gods had served them well for thousands of years, so why did the Irish abandon them? In the book In Search of Ancient Ireland by Carmel MacCaffrey and Leo Eaton it states.

“When Patrick died 492 – or 496, depending on whichever version of the annals one prefers – he had been spreading Christianity among the Irish for more than sixty years. But Ireland had not changed much over that time. Pockets of Christianity existed around royal courts and local centres of power, where Patrick and other early missionaries had been successful, but the vast majority of the country was still pagan.”

St. Patrick I suppose we have to look at it from their point of view. Would you give up on the gods that were making your harvests plentiful? Of course not, you’d stick with what works.

Oh I know, everyone thinks that Patrick converted the Irish to Christianity in the 5th century, but the Cult of St. Patrick wasn’t developed until the 7th century with the goal of making the church in Armagh the central church of Celtic Christianity.

Why did the monks of Armagh choose Patrick? I’m not entirely sure, but it could be because of his writings. His autobiography is called The Confession. When you read his words you get the impression that he was a very humble man, a sinner, like the rest of us, someone with which the common man could relate.

            “My name is Patrick. I am a sinner, a simple country person, and the least of all believers. I am looked down upon by many. My father was Calpornius. He was a deacon; his father was Potitus, a priest, who lived at Bannavem Taburniae”

Lake Ilopango So if it wasn’t St Patrick and the other missionaries, what forced the Irish people to adopt this new religion? It seems that the answer lies in Central America, around 536 a volcano under Lake Ilopango erupted causing a catastrophic event. In the Mediterranean it was reported that the skies turned red. The eruption had a global impact causing widespread famine and disease, plunging Europe into the Dark Ages. Recently, scientists have compared Ice core samples from the Greenland Ice sheet Project with the Irish Annals
click to read the BBC article on this study The Annals are sparsely written and hardly ever mention women, children, or peasants just noblemen and notable events (So none of my ancestors are mentioned in them.) Here are the entries following the Lake Ilopango eruption.

            Annals of Ulster, 536AD Failure of bread

            Annals of Inisfallen, 537AD Failure of bread

We also know that following the famine there was a plague that swept through Europe. This is also mentioned,

            Chronicon Scotorum, 541AD A great mortality which is called Belefeth, in which Mobhi Clairinech, whose name is Bercan, 'prorectano poetae', perished.

            For me, this makes the geological event, all the more significant because it puts a human face on the suffering it inflicted. The Irish starved. Their crops failed and their animals died. They believed their gods had deserted them and converted to Christianity. It is after this period that the great monasteries are built and we see a flowering of Irish culture. This wasn’t as big a leap as you might expect. Monks in this period were married men with families. It wasn’t until the 12th century that monks and priests were required to be celibate. And so the Celtic Church with its monasteries that coveted the written word came into being all because of a volcano in Central America.