Open [38.2 MB]

Ireland and the Making
of Britain
preaching among the Saxons of the South. Only a few
years later we find the accomplished Maeldubh, or Mael-
duf, dispensing lore to the West Saxon youth in an Irish
foundation, round which was to rise a cathedral and
town which were to carry his name to future ages. Thus
during the seventh century in the four corners of England,
in the south and in the north, in the west and in the east,
Irish missionaries were bringing the blessings of learning
and religion to the English heathen. We are not to suppose
that the Irish teachers whose names have come down
to us were alone in their work. Maelduf was not the
only Irish missionary and scholar established at Malmesbury.
He was undoubtedly the chief of the learned com-
pany or he would not have had the distinction of having
his name perpetuated in that of the town which he made
the scene of his labors and of which he may be called the
founder and apostle. Thus while Wessex was temporarily
won by Birinus, its complete conversion as well as the
winning of central Britain, the reconquest of Essex, and
the first evangelization of the wild South Saxons, were
the work of other Irishmen.
Not only through the North did the Irish teachers
descend on Britain, they entered it from several direc-
tions, some to pass through it as travelers on their way to
Rome and Palestine, others to preach and found schools
in the island. The journey of Fursa of the Visions, who
chose East Anglia as the scene of his labors, appears to
have taken the route through what is now South Wales.
Fursa was accompanied not only by his brothers Foillan
and Ultan, two remarkable men, almost the equals of their
brother in celebrity, but by a band of other Irish monks,
Gobhan, or Gobain, and Dicuil among them, at least half
a dozen of whom later won their laurels and have since
244