Open [38.2 MB]

Irish Christianity in Wales
complain of invasions of their territory time and again
the Gaels from Eire. 1
by
The ancient Irish work, Leabhar na g-Ceart, or Book
of Rights, has numerous entries attesting the existence
of considerable commerce and intercourse between Brit-
ain and Ireland. We are told that under the pagan Irish
kings 300 vessels traded with Britain. Welsh merchants
returned from Dairius, an island in Wexford Haven, to
St. David's ; and Welsh harbors, like Porthmawr,
are men-
tioned as points of departure for Ireland. Irish princes
made frequent matrimonial alliances with families of
equal station in west Britain. The superior wealth and
influence of Ireland are shown in the constant mention,
particularly in the fifth and sixth centuries, of Britons,
both male and female, living as slaves in Ireland. Thus
we read of St. Ailbe (d. 541) that he was given in fos-
terage to certain Britons who were in servitude in Ireland,
in the east of Munster. All this gravitates in the direction
of proving that Wales was then a vassal state in respect
to Ireland. Monks passed to and fro between Ireland
and west Britain, residing on both sides of the sea. To
a British monk, working as a cartwright in an Irish
monastery, S. Fintan tells the story of his visit to the Land
of Promise. British princes fighting the Angles and
Saxons found not only food and shelter but also soldiers
and ships in Ireland.
Thus the Irish, who had subdued the war-like Picts of
north Britain, not only established their authority over
the people of south Britain "Even to the Ictian Sea"
(English Channel), as Cormac tells us, but may be considered
the chief agency in the expulsion of the Romans
themselves from Britain. Numerous places in Britain
i Book of the West Cornwall, by S. Baring Gould, also Devon, by same
author (1899).
13
'77