Sometimes, writers
like to believe that Celtic Christianity was something very separate and
unique, to such an extent that something called 'Roman Christianity' arrived,
more or less, with the Normans in the 12th Century. This is a distortion of
Irish history. Yes, there were features unique to Ireland and what is now
Britain, including an emphasis on nature, monasticism, asceticism and fashions
and habits that might hint at ties to Eastern Christian traditions.
Pragmatically, Christianity, as it did elsewhere, had to negotiate its way into
local cultures, 'baptising' some pagan symbols and rites by removing what was
idolatrous and centring attention on the Son of God and not the Sun. Pagan
ritual sites became holy wells, and some scholars argue that the cult of St.
Brigid absorbed elements of an earlier pagan goddess of the same name — though
the extent of any direct continuity is debated among historians of early
Ireland and should be taken as a contested thesis rather than settled fact.
One area of interest is the Eucharist, because we can be assured that what was believed and practiced in the universal Church - East and West - was also held in Ireland, notwithstanding any particular local adaptations in the liturgy.
