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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   31896 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 7, 2025

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Yeah, the 5th century context is a little muddled. It's hard to know exactly how peaceful versus imposed the Christianisation of Ireland was, but it was pretty much peaceful and was heavily "local guys converted then converted their neighbours" and less "outsiders came in and imposed their foreign alien faith on the natives". Take St Patrick - he came to Ireland as a captive taken in a slave raid and eventually comes to identify with the Irish (see the Letter to Coroticus):

Surely it was not without God, or simply out of human motives, that I came to Ireland! Who was it who drove me to it? I am so bound by the Spirit that I no longer see my own kindred. Is it just from myself that comes the holy mercy in how I act towards that people who at one time took me captive and slaughtered the men and women servants in my father's home? In my human nature I was born free, in that I was born of a decurion father. But I sold out my noble state for the sake of others – and I am not ashamed of that, nor do I repent of it. Now, in Christ, I am a slave of a foreign people, for the sake of the indescribable glory of eternal life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

...That is why I will cry aloud with sadness and grief: O my fairest and most loving brothers and sisters whom I begot without number in Christ, what am I to do for you? I am not worthy to come to the aid either of God or of human beings. The evil of evil people has prevailed over us. We have been made as if we were complete outsiders. Can it be they do not believe that we have received one and the same Baptism, or that we have one and the same God as father. For them, it is a disgrace that we are from Ireland. Remember what Scripture says: ‘Do you not have the one God? Then why have you each abandoned your neighbour?’

Then there is the 11th century anecdote from Gerald of Wales, the Anglo-Norman apologist for the Norman invasion of Ireland:

Chapter XXXII: A sarcastic reply of the Archbishop of Cashel.
I once made objections of this kind to Maurice, archbishop of Cashel, a discreet and learned man, in the presence of Gerald, a clerk of the Roman church, who formerly came as legate into those parts, and throwing the blame of the enormous delinquencies of this country principally on the prelates, I drew a powerful argument from the fact that no one in that kingdom had ever obtained the crown of martyrdom for the church of God. Upon this the archbishop replied sarcastically, avoiding the point of my proposition, and answering it by a home-thrust: “It is true,” he said, “that although our nation may seem barbarous, uncivilized, and cruel, they have always shewn great honour and reverence to their ecclesiastics, and never on any occasion raised their hands against God’s saints. But there is now come into our land a people who know how to make martyrs, and have frequently done it. Henceforth Ireland will have its martyrs, as well as other countries.”

Now, it could be plausible that Remmick is complaining about "in the 5th century the king gave a parcel of land to the local monastery when he converted to Christianity and that was land my father occupied" but that is as far as you could stretch it - the land would have been the king's in the first place. There really weren't Christian conquerors marching around taking land off the locals the way this scene seems to be trying to evoke.

EDIT: Well, not unless you count miraculous cloaks as "marching around taking land off the locals":

[St Bridget] approached the King of Leinster requesting the land on which to build her monastery. The place she selected in Kildare was ideal. It was near a lake where water was available, in a forest where there was firewood and near a fertile plain on which to grow crops. The King refused her request. Brigid was not put off by his refusal. Rather, she and her sisters prayed that the King’s heart would soften. She made her request again but this time she asked, “Give me as much land as my cloak will cover.”

Seeing her small cloak, he laughed and then granted this request. However, Brigid had instructed her four helpers each to take a corner of the cloak and walk in opposite directions – north, south, east and west. As they did this the cloak began to grow and spread across many acres. She now had sufficient land on which to build her monastery. The King and his entire household were dismayed and amazed. They realised that this woman was truly blessed by God. The King became a patron of Brigid’s monastery, assisting her with money, food and gifts. Later he converted to Christianity. It was on this land in Kildare that she built her dual monastery c.470.

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