Monasticism in Ireland, AD 900-1250

Edel Bhreathnach

Winner of the NUI Irish Historical Research Prize 2025

Winner of the 2025 ACIS James S. Donnelly, Sr. Prize for Books in the Humanities and Social Sciences

The history of monasticism in early Ireland is dominated by its flourishing during the sixth and seventh centuries, a period dominated by Columba of Iona and Columbanus of Bobbio, and later by the ‘reform’ spearheaded by Malachy of Armagh during the twelfth century. But what of monasticism in Ireland during the intervening period? Regarded as different from ‘mainstream’ Anglo-Saxon and continental monasticism, monastic life in Ireland has not been fully understood in scholarly discussions about the existence of distinct ‘monasticisms’ throughout Christianity. The Irish sources, many written in the vernacular, are not readily accessible and are viewed as unconventional. The secularization of monasticism in Ireland has overshadowed evidence for a thriving lived monasticism. This major study concentrates on those men and women who followed a monastic life, especially between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, and who maintained a universal monastic ideology while incorporating monasticism into their own cultural environment.

Edel Bhreathnach is a medieval historian with an interest in interdisciplinary studies in archaeology, history and literature. During her career she worked in the Department of Foreign Affairs, the UCD Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute and was CEO of The Discovery Programme (2013-19). She held the Rhys Scholarship in Jesus College Oxford and was a Visiting Fellow to All Souls College Oxford. Her book Ireland in the medieval world: landscape, kingship and religion was published in 2014 (FCP, 2014).