Medieval Ebb and Flow

The origins of Cashel as an ecclesiastical centre go back to the grant by Murtagh O'Brien of the Rock to the Church and the subsequent synod in 1101. At the Synod of Rathbreasail (1111), which fixed its boundaries, it and Armagh were proposed as the two Irish metropolitan sees. When the four province system was set up at the Synod of Kells (1152), Cashel became a the de jure metropolitan of the southern province. Henry II received the submission of the southern bishops in Cashel in 1172 and convened several reform synods. In the 13th and 14th centuries its bishop was elected by the chapter and there was a notable number of Cistercian and Franciscan bishops. In subsequent centuries there were numerous cases of royal interventions in the provisions of archbishops. The arrival of the Gregorian reform movement in twelfth-century Ireland hastened the replacement of a predominantly monastic Church structure by a regular diocesan system. Cashel's metropolitan status dates from this period. The reform alsoaccelerated thee introduction into Ireland of numerous new and renewed orders of monks, canons and friars. Both Cashel and Emly had many houses of these Religious throughout the late medieval period.The beautifully impressive Cormac's Chapel on the Rock of Cashel represents Irish links with medieval Germany. (The background image of this page is of sandstone arcading at Cormac's Chapel). Holycross Abbey, founded in 1180 and restored as a parish church in the 1970's, ranks amongst the famous late medieval Irish Cistercian monasteries.The initial vitality of this medieval era gave way, in time, to stagnation and decline. However, a promising renewal was gathering momentum during the fifteenth century. Sadly, this renewal was interrupted by the arrival of the Protestant Reformation in the next century.