By Dan Walsh
On Thursday, 24 September at 7pm, Dr Breda Lynch will present the Wexford Normandy Cultural Association’s September talk, ‘A Church Already Changing: Ireland, the Cistercians and the Norman Arrival’, at Tintern Abbey.
Dr Breda Lynch is a historian and heritage professional with more than twenty-five years’ experience in Ireland’s heritage and conservation sector. She works with the Office of Public Works while also pursuing independent historical research.
Her work explores medieval religious institutions, monastic landscapes and church reform, particularly the influence of belief, patronage and political power on Ireland’s historic places and communities.
When Anglo-Norman forces arrived in Ireland, they encountered not an unreformed Church, but one already undergoing profound change. This talk traces the Irish led reform movement from the synods of Cashel, Ráith Bressail and Kells through the work of Cellach, Gillebert and Malachy of Armagh.
It explores the creation of territorial dioceses, metropolitan provinces, new clerical ideals and changing relationships between Church, kingship and ordinary Christian life.
Set within Tintern Abbey itself, the lecture reveals how reform, conquest and patronage reshaped Ireland’s institutions, communities and physical landscape.
This is a free event, but it is required to register on https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/a-church-already-changing-ireland-the-cistercians-and-the-norman-arrival-tickets-2000004741019?aff=oddtdtcreator
