The Irish church, its reform and the English invasion by Donnachadh Ó Corráin (review)

Reviewed by: The Irish church, its reform and the English invasion by Donnachadh Ó Corráin Gregory J. Darling (bio) Donnachadh Ó Corráin, The Irish church, its reform and the English invasion. Trinity Medieval Ireland Series 2. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2022. ISBN 978-1-80151-053-0. Pp. viii + 148. 50 (cloth). In his masterful work, The Irish church, its reform and the English invasion, Donnchadh Ó Corráin sets forth a critical history of the reform movement of the Irish church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In his Introduction, he takes an objective approach that does not privilege the work of the reformers: The term 'reform' is here used without any implication that what the reformers of the eleventh or twelfth centuries wished to bring about was morally, spiritually, socially, or administratively superior to what they wished to change. (1) Ó Corráin observes that 'reform meant quite different things for different reformers' (1): for some, management changes; for some, monastic renewal, for some lay morality (particularly in connection with marriage) ; for some, a celibate clergy. He notes critically that even the statements of clergy cannot be taken as expressions of 'self-evident truth and devotion' and cites St. Bernard's effusive words about St. Malachy as what for him is an example of the unreliability of such accounts (3). In chapter 1, 'The Irish church. Episcopal organization', Ó Corráin describes the organization of the Irish church before the reform movement was set into motion. Ó Corráin notes that, early in the twelfth century, church reformers advocated 'an orthodox diocesan structure with metropolitan archbishops and a primate' (10). In addition to monks, there are the manaig—monks who left the monastic life to become 'owners and farmers of church land' (11). Ó Corráin observes that 'in time the early Irish monastery changed in membership, structure and function' (14), causing writers of history End Page 125 'many difficulties' (15). On the issue of clerical celibacy, Ó Corráin indicates that 'the coarbs of Patrick and the like were a scandal because they tended to be non-celibate and hereditary' (18–19) ; however, he points out that non-celibacy and heredity 'were to be found everywhere within the church' (19). He observes that the bonds between kings and clerics were often 'troublesome' and that even churches engaged in warfare (22–23). Nevertheless, he indicates that asceticism and religious scholarship 'flourished' during the tenth and eleventh centuries (29). Ó Corráin points out at the end of the chapter that the reformers advocated a 'revolution in the administration of the Irish church', in addition to 'a root-and-harsh reformation of marital laws and sexual mores' (42). In chapter II, 'Reforming lay society. Irish marriage and divorce', Ó Corráin begins by noting that Irish marital and sexual behavior was the main concern of the reformers in connection with the laity (43), whereas the reformers paid little attention to other types of crimes. Ó Corráin refers to the communication between the Canterbury archbishops Lanfranc and Anselm, Pope Gregory vii, Pope Adrian iv, Pope Alexander iii, and various Irish kings and points out that 'the understandings of Irish marital and sexual mores, as set out by the archbishop of Canterbury, Bernard, popes Adrian iv and Alexander iii and others, are based on real differences of behavior but mostly differences of perception' (49). Ó Corráin, in this respect, notes toward the end of the chapter that the Irish, then, were not more corrupt than their counterparts in mainland Europe, but 'were just differently organized' (55). In chapter III, 'The intervention of Canterbury', Ó Corráin sets forth the attempt of the archbishopric of Canterbury to assert control over the church in Dublin and in the rest of Ireland. He begins by noting the appearance of the cleric Lanfranc of Pavia (1005/1010–1089), a Benedictine monk who was a friend of William the Conqueror and who was made archbishop of Canterbury by him. Ó Corráin observes that Lanfranc soon manifested his power in the Irish church and that 'the criticism of the Irish institutions voiced by Lanfranc and his successor Anselm' should be viewed in the context of 'eleventh-century continental and Norman-French attitudes to practices different from. . .