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But though attempts were made by legislation to keep the Irish and
English apart, and though as a rule feeling between both parties ran
high, there was one point on which both were in agreement, and that
was loyalty and submission to the Pope. That the Irish Church as such,
like the rest of the Christian world, accepted fully the supremacy of
the Pope at the period of the Norman invasion is evident from the
presence and activity of the papal legates, Gillebert of Limerick, St.
Malachy of Armagh, Christian, Bishop of Lismore, and St. Laurence
O'Toole, from the frequent pilgrimages of Irish laymen and
ecclesiastics to Rome, from the close relations with the Roman Court
maintained by St. Malachy during his campaign for reform, and from the
action of the Pope in sending Cardinal Paparo to the national synod at
Kells (1152) to bestow the palliums on the Archbishops of Armagh,
Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam. Had there been any room for doubt about the
principles and action of the Irish Church the question must
necessarily have been discussed at the Synod of Cashel convoked by
Henry II. to put an end to the supposed abuses existing in the Irish
Church (1172), and yet, though it was laid down that in its liturgy
and practices the Irish Church should conform to English customs, not
a word was said that could by any possibility imply that the Irish
people were less submissive to the Pope than any other nation at this
period.[12]

After the Normans had succeeded in securing a foothold in the country,
both Irish and Normans were at one in accepting the Roman supremacy.
The Pope appointed to all bishoprics whether situated within or
without the Pale; he deposed bishops, accepted their resignations,
transferred them from one See to another, cited them before his
tribunals, censured them at times, and granted them special faculties
for dispensing in matrimonial and other causes. He appointed to many
of the abbeys and priories in all parts of the country, named
ecclesiastics to rectories and vicarages in Raphoe, Derry, Tuam,
Kilmacduagh, and Kerry, with exactly the same freedom as he did in
case of Dublin, Kildare or Meath, and tried cases involving the rights
of laymen and ecclesiastics in Rome or appointed judges to take
cognisance of such cases in Ireland. He sent special legates into
Ireland, levied taxes on all benefices, appointed collectors to
enforce the payment of these taxes, and issued dispensations in
irregularities and impediments.

The fiction of two churches in Ireland, one the Anglo-Irish
acknowledging the authority of the Pope, the other the Irish fighting
sullenly against papal aggression, has been laid to rest by the
publication of Theiner's /Vetera Monumenta Hibernorum et Scotorum/,
the /Calendars of Papal Letters/, the /Calendars of Documents
(Ireland)/ and the /Annats/. If any writer, regardless of such
striking evidence, should be inclined to revive such a theory he
should find himself faced with the further disagreeable fact that,
when the English nation and a considerable body of the Anglo-Irish
nobles fell away from their obedience to Rome, the Irish people, who
were supposed to be hostile to the Pope, preferred to risk everything
rather than allow themselves to be separated from the centre of unity.
Such a complete and instantaneous change of front, if historical,
would be as inexplicable as it would be unparalleled.

Nor is there any evidence to show that Lollardy or any other heresy
found any support in Ireland during the fourteenth or fifteenth
centuries. During the episcopate of Bishop Ledrede in Ossory (1317-
60), it would appear both from the constitutions enacted in a diocesan
synod held in 1317 as well as from the measures he felt it necessary
to take, that in the city of Kilkenny a few individuals called in
question the Incarnation, and the Virginity of the Blessed Virgin, but
it is clear that such opinions were confined to a very limited circle
and did not affect the body of the people.[13] About the same time,
too, the dispute that was being waged between John XXII. and a section
of the Franciscans found an echo in the province of Cashel, though
there is no proof that the movement ever assumed any considerable
dimensions.[14] Similarly at a later period, when the Christian world
was disturbed by the presence of several claimants to the Papacy and
by the theories to which the Great Western Schism gave rise, news was
forwarded to Rome that some of the Irish prelates, amongst them being
the Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishop of Ferns, were inclined to set
at nought the instructions of Martin V. (1424), but the latter pontiff
took energetic measures to put an end to a phenomenon that was quite
intelligible considering the general disorder of the period. The