It has become a commonplace of Irish history to assume that this country lay outside the full stream of European life until the twelfth century, and to preface an account of the Norman invasion with a brief survey of the very remarkable movement for the reform of the Irish church which we associate principally with the name of St Malachy. Dean Lawlor's short introductory essay to his translation of St Bernard's Life of St Malachy appeared in 1920, and is still the most readable version of this commonly accepted view. It is the purpose of this paper to criticise this view as a whole, and I shall have a good deal to say in criticism, not only of Lawlor's essay, but also of the last chapter of Kenney's otherwise admirable Sources for the early history of Ireland. All the more reason why I should begin by stating clearly my own personal debt to both these scholars. If I criticise their conclusions and their inadequate statement of the evidence, I do so in full consciousness of all that I have learned from their useful publications.

In the decade of the 1650's many of the Irish confederate leaders, lay and ecclesiastical, found themselves exiles in Europe. In exile, they naturally turned again to the disputes which had disrupted the confederation and had helped to make Cromwell's campaign easier than it might otherwise have been. These disputes grew more and more bitter in the disappointment of defeat; and no matter what point they started from, they had a way of returning to the censures which the papal nuncio, Rinuccini, had pronounced on 27 May 1648. These censures had divided the confederation beyond hope of reunion; even after ten years, they were still regarded by one party as having been justly inflicted, necessary for the preservation of the Catholic religion, while the other considered them to have been unjust and invalid, and the real cause of the subsequent overthrow of the confederation.