Weathering the Gael


 * Weathering the Gael
 * by Dan McCollum
 * 28 January 2002


 * From The Rise and Fall of the Kingdom of Dublin
 * by Sean McErik

By SE 375 [1147 CE] the Kingdom of Dublin had reached the zenith of its power. Covering almost the whole of Ireland, it stretched its hands out across the Irish sea, holding the lands of Scotland, Cornwall and Wales, so it was by no means a homogeneous state. FN1 Composed of several major peoples, and two major religions, the Kingdom was beginning to undergo many of the same stresses and strains that would eventually seal its fate. It is important to realize that when we speak of the Kingdom of Dublin we are not, in fact, speaking of the Kingdom of Ireland. The latter was a separate state that would not arise for many years, and the two share very little in common except for common political borders.

The largest difference, of course, is that in the Kingdom of Dublin, it was not actually the Irish who held power, nor composed but a small fragment of the nobility. The Northmen, who had first come to the islands during the Viking Wars, bringing with them the religion of Submission, composed a vast majority of the ruling body and where largely concentrated in their trading cities and fortresses, such as Dublin, Ragnarford, and Limerick as well as clinging to strongholds in the Upper Highlands of Scotland as well as prospering settlements in the lowlands. They were all followers of Submission, and they ruled their mostly-Christian subjects with an ebb and flow of tolerance or repression.

The largest group, by far, was that of the Irish who dominated the lands of the Earldoms of Ulster, Leinster, Munster, Scotland and so forth. They were predominantly followers of Celtic Christianity, although a growing number of them were beginning to 'submit' to the religion of Ragnar the Prophet. Although not repressed as harshly or as often as Christians in other lands in the House of Submission, they remained an underclass in their own land, largely forced to till the land of the conquerors. Some had fled to the cities where they now composed a little under than half the population of Dublin, largely due to a higher birth rate, as well as growing habit of lower-class Norse to "Gaelicize" over the generations. FN2 Some also fled across the Sea to the other realms of the Kingdom where the Manorial law was less rigidly enforced. An influx of Irish had, in fact, cemented Scotland into the Kingdom, snuffing out any idea of Scottish cultural separation.

The third and final group who made up the Kingdom was the people of Wales and Cornwall. The most impoverished of the three peoples, they soon found that growing Irish communities in their lands were beginning to erode the idea of "Welshness" that had lingered since the coming of the Saxons. The Welsh were treated worse than the Irish, if only because there were fewer of them, and therefore less of a threat to the rule of the Northmen. The ruling house of Dublin had, ever since its acquisition of Wales, attempted to play the Irish and Welsh off each another, with varying levels of success over the years.

If it had only been culture and language that separated the Kingdom, the kings might have had much less trouble than they did. However, the division of the Kingdom in the prosperous Submissive communities, and the less wealthy but more numerous Celtic Christians would be devastating in the long run. It is interesting to consider what might have occurred to Celtic Christianity has Submission not made an entrance onto the world scene. Many current historians believe that the religion was in decline in comparison to the more vigorous Latin Christianity growing in the Anglo-Saxon lands. However, the Norse invasion and the coming of Submission changed all that.

Christianity suddenly became, not the only, but one of the largest unifying factors of the factional Irish society. As time went on, and much of the remaining Irish upper class also converted to the new religion, Christianity began to take on the role of an underclass religion. This would be a problem for even the most tolerant Dublin King, but would it would prove a disaster to the foolish or intolerant.

The most important development in Celtic Christianity appeared in the form of an Irish priest named Donald Cennedy in SE 360 [1132 CE]. We know surprisingly little about the early life of Cennedy, except that he came from a large clan in Central Ireland which had wielded considerable political power in the past. We also know that Cennedy's father Francis had converted to Submission, and so young Donald grew up in the religion of the conqueror. Following the deaths of his wife and mother from the Black Death in SE 357 [1129 CE], he seems to have had a crisis of faith. Coming to believe that the terrible tragedy was visited upon his family for their conversion to the new religion, he fled the manor and went to live a life of solitude in the wilderness. Legend tells us that, upon the anniversary of his third year away from his family, Cennedy was visited by the image of a blood-stained Christ who demanded that his people be freed from their bondage to the infidels and restored to their ancient way of life.

Empowered by this vision, Donald Cennedy ventured out from his cave and began to preach to the people of the local village, where his message was met with tremendous success. The Black Plague, the resulting minor famine, and the conditions of the poor in the Kingdom had created an audience that desperately wanted to hear the message that Cennedy brought.

And just what was this message? The noble-turned-monk spoke of a return to the basics of life, to the ancient ways of the Gael, a strict interpretation of the Bible and early Church traditions. He also pointed to the ideal of the Crusades of the previous century, that any man who fell defending the Faith was a martyr for Christ who had earned a place in Heaven, while any Submissive struck down by the blade of a Christian would be sentenced to enteral damnation and hellfire. It was, in many respects, your typical back to the basics movement when often spring up in such times.

On March 21, 368 [1140 CE], after eight years of preaching, Cennedy lead a small group of followers in an ambush against a local Irish lord who had converted to Submission. The Christians fell upon the man's convoy and killed everyone present, including the man's wife and six-year-old son. Outraged and horrified, King Snorri II deployed a small militia to round up the monk and his men. Cennedy and his men fled from the village while the people were being butchered, but after nine months on the run one of his own men turned him in to King Snorri in exchange for a full pardon. Donald Cennedy was sentenced to death by drawing and quartering, the pieces of his body were sent to the far reaches of the Kingdom.

The incident would be one of the only blights upon the reign of Snorri II, but it would have grave implications for those who followed. For the Cennedites, or the Crusaders as they came to be known, had suddenly gained a martyr where their leader had once stood. The sect began to grow like a cancer among the peasants and lower classes of the realm. It would not be long before they would play a very important part in the history of the Kingdom of Dublin.


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