Celtic Christianity and the Outer Hebrides
CELTIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE OUTER HEBRIDES
Yesterday, today and tomorrow
BY ANDREW DUNROSSIL
CELTIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE OUTER HEBRIDES
CONTENTS:
PREFACE.......................................................................................................................................3
Part 1
INTRODUCTION: FAITH OF MY FATHERS........................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: THE OUTER HEBRIDES, A BRIEF DESCRIPTION............................................................11
CHAPTER 3: WHO WERE THE CELTS?.............................................................................................15
CHAPTER 4: THE GOLDEN AGE OF CELTIC CHRISTIANITY...............................................................19
CHAPTER 5: THE OUTER HEBRIDES SINCE 800: CHALLENGE AND SURVIVAL..................................25
PART 2
CHAPTER 6: SIMPLICITY, SUSTAINABILITY AND THE ABUSE OF POWER........................................39
CHAPTER 7: A CHRISTIAN EDEN: CELTS AND CREATION SPIRITUALITY .........................................50
CHAPTER 8: POETS AND MYSTICS: LANGUAGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS..........................................61
CHAPTER 9: THIN TIMES, THIN PLACES: ACCESSING THE OTHERWORLD.......................................73
CHAPTER 10: LIVING IN COMMUNITY: BEING A PARTICIPANT......................................................82
CHAPTER 11: MAKING IT RIGHT: PENANCE AND RESTORATIVE JUSTICE........................................90
CONCLUSION: FAITH OF MY CHILDREN.........................................................................................100
APPENDIX 1: TIMELINE FOR CELTIC CHRISTIANITY 400-800 .........................................................104
APPENDIX 2: TIMELINE FOR THE HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES 800-1900.............................106
APPENDIX 3: POEMS: SELECTIONS FROM HERMIT POEMS; THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE; ISLAND HERMITAGE;……………………………………………………………………………………………………..........................108
APPENDIX 4: SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY...........................................................................................110
GLOSSARY:.................................................................................................................................113
PREFACE
Some people have claimed that there is really no such thing as Celtic Christianity. They point out that it was never a separate denomination, as we know them today. Others have maintained that it is something totally fluid, and almost arbitrary, which we reinvent in our own image every generation or so. Still others maintain it was only a historical phenomenon, what we might call the Golden Age of Celtic Christianity, which lasted from about 400 to 800AD, with its heart in the Hebridean island of Iona, and that it died with the arrival of the Vikings.
The argument for saying that there really was a distinct spirituality, which survived the Viking invasions, and which has persisted in place to this day, regardless of the apparently contrary public professions of Protestant and Catholic, rests largely on the discovery of poems, charms and hymns collected in the Outer Hebrides in the late nineteenth century by Alexander Carmichael, and known as the Carmina Gadelica.
Despite centuries of oppression and persecution, Gaelic, the language of Saint Brigid and Columba, survived in these islands, and remains the principal language of the islanders today. It is language in which a culture is carried and preserved, and Brigid and Coljumba continued to be venerated and invoked by the islanders in their daily activities as part of this continuing tradition. The Church of Scotland understood this and tried its best for many years to stamp out Gaelic altogether, calling it the language of superstition.
Language, then, provided the continuous thread, linking the Golden Age with our own. And today the publication of the Carmina, which have been frequently anthologized, has spread this distinctive vision around the world.
My great great grandparents contributed pieces to the Carmina, and so did my great grandfather, their son. This is my excuse for inflicting on you yet another book on the subject: it is the faith of my fathers. It has also been my excuse for using anecdotes from my own family, to illustrate some of my points. The idea is that using illustrations from different periods will help to reinforce the sense of continuity between the Golden Age and today.
But, more importantly, bringing Celtic Christianity out of the history books and into the present day matters, because I feel it can help us in our approach to so many of the big questions, which worry, or should worry, us today: questions to do with the culture of consumption, the abuse of power, the treatment of women, petty disputes over doctrine, and the very survival of our planet and its species.
I am a historian by inclination. Please indulge me as I try to give you some context over the first few chapters for what is to come. I believe it will help you make sense of the rest of the story. I also think, and hope, that you’ll find it interesting. It’s probably not anything you learned in school. It wasn’t what I was taught there either, and that, in itself, speaks volumes.