Ireland without St. Patrick

Going from the Pagan Europe thread what would the effects have been of no Irish conversion to Christianity?
Lets say Patrick and the other missionaries are killed before they can do much conversion or just fail in their attempts.
 
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Going from the Pagan Europe thread what would the effects have been of no Irish conversion to Christianity?
Lets say Patrick and the other missionaries are killed before they can do much conversion or just fail in their attempts.

Assuming later missionaries don't convert the Irish and they remain pagan, then the Irish probably merge culturally with the Norse when they arrive, leading to a Norse-dominant, but majority Celtic militant pagan society which will periodically raid Scotland, England, and Wales. Various Anglo-Saxon Kings of England might lead punitive expeditions there, but no permanent incursions will be made by the Saxons.

Finally, after the Norman Conquest, one of the Norman kings of England, most likely Henry II, leads a Crusade against the heathens of Hibernia. The Irish are forcibly converted or exterminated if they refuse conversion. The Normans settle in much larger numbers, and Irish language and culture are pretty much obliterated over time. The whole of Ireland is a happy, contented part of the United Kingdom today.
 
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Would the Saxons or Normans be Christian at all in this TL though? The Irish Church did a lot of the work in converting the Saxons and the Germans that bordered Charlemange. Without the Irish missionaries do any of these places convert?
The Welsh were mostly Christian but would more concerned with fighting the Saxons not converting them so I don't see them doing it. Maybe Contienental missionaries but that will slow the process quit a bit.
 
There were other missionaries, and would be still more.

OTOH, whether they'd be as successful, both in terms of conversion and interms of preserving Irish culture is another question.
 
No missionary effort would be successful on its own without the support of a militarily powerful lay authority. That said, if Christianity failed in Ireland, the Germanic and Norse Polytheists would make headway in the British Isles. By 600-700 CE, Germany, Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland, by then sharing the same cultural and religious beliefs, may develop a seperate and distinct civilization from Christian Europe. In Ireland, the last vestiges of the old Celtic Druid class existed until Christianization. If they merged their traditions with the Norse colonists in Ireland, we might see the rise of a new scholarly class in Norse Polytheism, which could spread around northern Europe. They might carry the seeds of new Pagan-born idealogies that may shape the future of Europe. The Irish already had Ogham writing, while Germanics had their Runic alphabet. In Britain, being richer in agriculture than Ireland, northern Germany and Scandinavia, and being across the seas from the Christian Frankish statelets, a new kind of Polytheistic theology could be crafted.
 
Would the Saxons or Normans be Christian at all in this TL though? The Irish Church did a lot of the work in converting the Saxons and the Germans that bordered Charlemange. Without the Irish missionaries do any of these places convert?

Yes. It would be Continental missionaries instead of Irish missionaries doing it. It might take longer, but in the end, it will still happen. Indeed, it might happen more efficiently because you won't have controversies between the Roman and Irish churches interrupting the conversion process.
 
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Ireland, unfortunately, would be Christianised anyway, just as Scandinavia was (In great part by Irish monks, but still). On the other hand, Padraig was able to meld Irish and Christian culture to some extent. Would other missionaries be able to do this? I think we'd likely see a more centralized Ireland, as one dynasty conquers the rest in the name of Christ (or something like that). This'd make Ireland a rather harder nut to crack when the Norse come knocking, making disunited and feuding England a much more attractive option by comparison.
 
Ireland, unfortunately, would be Christianised anyway, just as Scandinavia was (In great part by Irish monks, but still). On the other hand, Padraig was able to meld Irish and Christian culture to some extent. Would other missionaries be able to do this? I think we'd likely see a more centralized Ireland, as one dynasty conquers the rest in the name of Christ (or something like that). This'd make Ireland a rather harder nut to crack when the Norse come knocking, making disunited and feuding England a much more attractive option by comparison.

Of course, you could very well also end up with an Ireland just as divided as OTL's. It really all comes down to what sort of Christianity takes hold, monastic or episcopal. The latter, however, would require cities, and Ireland was quite lacking in those before the Heathen Norse came and founded Dublin, Wexford, Limerick, et al.

Then again, say, an Archbishop of Tara would encourage urban growth, and possibly political consolidation as well, but that's more up in the air.
 
There were other missionaries, and would be still more.

OTOH, whether they'd be as successful, both in terms of conversion and interms of preserving Irish culture is another question.

Ireland, unfortunately, would be Christianised anyway, just as Scandinavia was (In great part by Irish monks, but still).

And I agree that it would have been Christianised by someone.

Since the stated POD is that the missionaries are killed when they arrive...including later ones...and that Ireland is not Christianized (or at least not voluntarily Christianized...that's why I suggested that it would fall victim to a Crusade, once that sort of thing became fashionable in Europe), all this is beside the point. Discussion should be focusing on the effects of a pagan Ireland in the interim until the Crusade comes.
 

Deleted member 5719

Supposing a failure of all efforts to convert Ireland, or perhaps a partial conversion then a defeat of the Christian component of society, there will be a huge knock on effect.

The Picts will probably remain pagan at least until the viking era, possibly much later. We can't be sure that the Scots will become dominant north of the Forth/Clyde line, because Iona christianity was a strong part of the Gaelic politico-cultural package. There will be more Christian/Pagan conflict among the Britons in lowland Scotland.

The Saxons (assuming they even conquer as much of *England as OTL) will be converted over a much longer time frame, the southern kingdoms about the same as OTL, but Northern entities taking longer. Remember, Northumbria was converted from Lindisfarne, by Iona rite Christians. Christianity then pushed into Mercia from the south and from the north simultaneously.

Without Irish Christianity, the push into central England will likely be delayed, and *Northumbria (possibly even *Mercia) might still be pagan when the guys with hornless helmets arrive.

The conversion of Germanic pagan Europe will also possibly suffer a 50 year knockback.

What a timeline there is in this!
 

Deleted member 5719

@people who say the early conversion of Ireland was inevitable.

It actually wasn't. The Britons lived side by side with the Saxons for 200 years without trying to convert them, and missionaries didn't come from Europe in al that time. If they had shown the same attitude towards the Irish, they would never have been converted. All we need is greater British/Irish hostility to stop conversion.

As for the continentals, like I say, they showed little interest even in converting England, which was 25 miles away! Imagine how much slower they'd have been without the great European missionary efforts of the Irish.

Of course, someone else could have converted Ireland, but it was not inevitable.
 
That changes...everything

It was the Irish who began the christianisation of the English and Scots, it was the Irish that founded the rich monasteries at Lindisfarne and Iona that attracted Viking predation. Without Irish Christianity England would have been a far less attractive target for the Vikings

Christianity as a whole may also be less likely to absorb native religions, without the example of Irish Christianity the maybe less Saints whose origins lay within Pagan religions, for instance Saint Brigit

Irish Christianity also contributed a lot of theology to the Church. IIRC the Catholic Church's doctrine on Original Sin and Limbo actually originates with the Irish Church. No Irish Christianity means these doctrines don't get incorporated.

The Irish monks also kept a lot of the knowledge of the ancients alive. Without them the Early Medieval period is going to be a lot darker and the Renaissance will probably be delayed

The Irish also converted large numbers of Germans and Scandinavians, without them the odds are the conversions take longer if they happen at all. The Irish also converted mainly by persuasion as opposed to the continental Christians who were largely content to let the sword, or the threat of the sword do the talking.

Without the Irish the church in the British Isles would also be more likely to adhere to the strictures of Rome. In OTL it kept drifting away and every few hundred years Rome at reinforce it's rules

Irish Christianity was the most vibrant church in the West between the fall of WRE and the Norman Conquest. I wonder whether there'd even be significant numbers of Christians in northern and Western Europe without it
 
No one seems to realize there already were Christians in Ireland before St. Patrick came. They were small in number, and lived mostly in the south. Pope Celestine realized these Christians needed a bishop and so sent St. Palladius to them. His work seems to have been difficult, and when he died Patrick was sent to continue his work. It seems to me that even without St. Patrick, The Catholic Church would have kept sending missionaries and Ireland would have been converted anyway.
 
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