Irish History: The Introduction Of The Religion, Christianity In Ireland

The Introduction of the Religion, Christianity in Ireland
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
The Introduction of the Religion, Christianity in Ireland
Introduction
The first Christianity arrived in Ireland between 400AD to 800 AD a period referred to as the Early Christian Period. At this time Christians from France and Britain begun to arrive in Ireland. St. Patrick was the bishop who was sent to Ireland to convert the pagans but before him, a missionary by the name Palladius had gone before him. Before St. Patrick came to Ireland the Irish were completely barbaric and did not believe in Christianity (Charles, 2014). When Emperor Constantine came to power and made Christianity an official religion in his territory. Before Christianity, the most majority of the Inhabitants in Ireland were involved in Celtic Polytheism. The coming of Christianity in Ireland brought experience and knowledge from the outside world. The missionaries encouraged the Irish people to learn and thus they were able to acquire reading and writing skills. The discussion below is going to cover the introduction of Christianity to Ireland and its comparison to the native pagan traditions to the cultural aspect of Christianity.
Literature Review
The cultural groups that I choose to compare and contrast is the Christianity and the aspect of pagan gods in Ireland. In Ireland Christianity spread through the mission of St. Patrick that was started in the 413 A.D, the mission lasted for around 40 years thus making Irish Catholicism to be greatly accepted by the Irish. Christianity was a great force which greatly influenced the Irish people. The Celtic polytheism involves different religious beliefs and practices which were adhering to the Iron Age people who were known as the Celt. Celtic polytheism was made up of a high degree of variation geographically but also had great similarities which allowed them to form basic religious homogeneity among those people who were Celtic (Clark, 2016). The Celtic communities had developed in different ways to respond to different historical and geographical circumstances Different reasons made Christianity to be accepted into the Celtic culture in Ireland. The fact that the Christian God took three different form was similar to that of the Celt where their deities had different forms and this made the concept of Christianity to be accepted by the pagan Irish. Another similarity that existed was that the immorality doctrine which was taught by Christians was similar to the teaching of the Celts. The goddesses and gods of the Celtic culture were immortal and the doctrine of immorality was first developed by the pagan Celtic religion. The Christianity cultural aspect taught about eternal life to all those who believed and thus making it similar to the Celts culture who already had the idea of life after death.
The coming of Christianity did not bring an abrupt change to the Celts but it was the recognition and incorporation of the pagan practices that the aspects of Christianity was easily accepted by the Celts due to the evidence of Celtic Christianity (Meek, 2014). Some of the Christian sites were built recognizing the places-souls of the Celtic aspects. Some of the aspects of pagan religion i...