Ireland at the Edge of Time and Space: Constructions of Christian Identity in Early Medieval Ireland

Conversion on a deeper level entails a change in identity, on both the communal and the individual level. It requires a reorientation of one’s identity regarding one’s place in the world in relation to the divinity (or divinities, depending on the religion in question). The Christianization of Ireland in the Early Middle Ages was a process spanning centuries, starting with St Patrick and other missionaries in the 4th century and continuing until the 6th and 7th centuries, when we have St Columbanus with a self-assured Christian identity writing letters to the pope, among others, and the followers of St Patrick, Muirchú and Tírechán turning St Patrick’s life and deeds into hagiography. Adomnán, another 7th-century hagiographer, writes of the holiness of St Columba on the island of Iona in the Inner Hebrides with a view over the whole Christendom despite his remote geographical location. Christian identity should, furthermore, be otherworldly in character, as its orientation should always be towards the true home of Christians in heaven – as evidenced by these early medieval Irish authors writing about what it means to be a Christian in this world.