Ireland’s Deserts-Fathers, the Culdees: An Introduction to Their Consuetudinal Literature

The culdees (celi De, ‘dependants of god’, in Old and Middle Irish) were a strict-regime ascetic movement in the Gaelic Churches from the late eighth century. Various classes of (largely vernacular) Irish literature have been attributed to them, with greatly differing degrees of plausibility. Since they were first brought to scholarly prominence - in a classic publication by William Reeves in 1864 - they have captured the imagination of students of mediaeval Gaelic history, literature and spirituality. The present study is devoted to the texts which give us close-up views of their daily life. Through close attention to the four surviving versions of a text originally written about A.D. 840, probably at Terryglass in Munster but celebrating in particular the way of life at Tallaght Abbey (near Dublin) under its founder Mael Ruain, we can learn much about the culdee-movement. These are compelling texts, giving the reader a ringside-view of the aspirations, daily life, debates, fears, and rigours of high-minded and fiercely determined monks of the earlier Middle Ages. The author pays particular attention to analysing these texts for evidence about their origins, their author’s (or authors’) outlook, and the history, ideology, and structures of the culdee-movement in its first two generations.