Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/425

 the treasure collected upon each visitation Celsus may well have made a noble use, as, for example, in the case of the great ‘damhliag,’ or church, at Armagh, which he fitted with a shingle roof (January 1125) after it had remained without a coping for 130 years (Annals of Loch Cé, i. 119); or when he gave the precious silver chalice to the church of Clonmacnoise (Chr. Scot. p. 329). Besides his ecclesiastical duties Celsus was constantly being called upon to mediate between the rival kings and tribes of Ireland. So in 1107 and 1109 we find him making a year's peace between Donald Mac Lochlainn, king of Elagh, and Muirchertach O'Brian, king of Munster—the northern and southern claimants for the supreme lordship of the whole island (Ann. Ult. pp. 372, 373; A. F. M.) Again, when Donald came to ravage Down in 1113, and the two armies lay confronting each other for a whole month at Clonkeen, it was Celsus, with his ‘Bachall-Isa,’ or staff of office, who reconciled the rival hosts (Loch Cé, i. 103). Many years later (1128), just before his death, he made a year's peace between the men of Connaught and Munster (Ann. Ult. p. 394), and two years previously (1126) he had been absent from Armagh for thirteen months on a similar errand, ‘pacifying the men of Erin and imposing good rules and customs on all, both laity and clergy’ (Loch Cé, i. 121).

As head of the church of Ireland, Celsus convoked the great synod of Fiadh-mac-Ænghusa (1111), sometimes called that of Usneach (Ann. Buell. p. 21, &c.). At this synod, Murtogh O'Brian and the chiefs of Leth-Mogha (S. Ireland), fifty bishops, three hundred priests, and three thousand students are said to have been present (A. F. M., with which, however, cf. the less symmetrical numbers given in the Chr. Scot. sub anno 1107). Of this council we read that it made better ordinances and rules for the conduct of all, both laity and clergy (Loch Cé, i. 1, and Ann. Inisf. p. 98). According to Dr. Lanigan it was probably about this time that Celsus confirmed Cashel in the primacy of S. Ireland (Eccles. Hist. iv. 30, with which cf. Vit. Mal. c. 15). The same authority tells us that Celsus was present at the council of Rathbreasil (1117), over which Gilbert, the papal legate, presided, when the boundaries of the Irish dioceses were fixed (, pp. 38–45).

On the death of Samuel O'Haingly, bishop of Dublin, who had been consecrated by Anselm, we read that Celsus was chosen his successor by the election of both Danes and Irish (Ann. Ult. p. 1121). This appointment was, however, challenged by another section of the townsmen, who sent over their own nominee—one Grein or Gregory—to be consecrated by Archbishop Ralph at Canterbury (, Historia Novorum, pp. 297–8). But the influence and generosity of Celsus seem to have restrained his rival (though apparently supported by the good wishes of the kings of England and of Ireland) from venturing to assert his rights actively (ib.;, Syllogæ, pp. 100, 101). There seems to be no authority for Dr. Lanigan's statement (p. 48) that Celsus ‘acquiesced in Gregory's appointment.’ This dispute appears in great measure to have been one between the nominee of the Danish burgesses of Dublin, who would naturally prefer to have a Teutonic metropolitan—especially at so convenient a distance as Canterbury—and those who supported the rights of the Celtic archbishop of Armagh. Celsus's success led to the temporary severance of the close connection that, since the first years of Lanfranc's episcopacy, had existed between the sees of Dublin and Canterbury (Epistolæ Lanfranci, ap., cl. 532–7; , Norm. Conq. iv. 526–530); Gregory seems, however, to have recovered his bishopric on Celsus's death (A. F. M. pp. 1157, 1162). If the king of Ireland, alluded to above, be Turlough O'Conor, who had become master of Dublin in 1118 (Loch Cé, i. 111), it is curious that Celsus should have succeeded in maintaining himself in his new office. It was a little previous to this Dublin contest (1118) that Celsus was submerged in the river Dubhall (Blackwater in Armagh), and had to swim ashore, ‘propriis viribus,’ with the loss of his treasure of cloths and silver (Loch Cé, i. 109). In 1128 he was subject to a most unprovoked attack, of which all the old Irish annals speak in terms of the greatest horror—as of an insult offered to Christ himself—a deed that, until it was avenged, would bring down the wrath of God on the whole land. The O'Ruarcs and the O'Brians had set upon Celsus and his retinue in a church, plundering him of his goods and slaying his retinue, and among them a young clerk who had taken shelter beneath the altar. Next year Celsus died, in his fiftieth year, at Ardpatrick in Munster (1 April 1129). Two days later his body was conveyed to Lismore, where it was buried on the following Tuesday (4 April).

Celsus seems to have determined to break through the hereditary succession to the see of Armagh, and, with this end in view, drew up a kind of will (testamentum or constitutio Celsi), in which he recommended St. Malachy as his successor. From his deathbed he sent his pastoral staff to this saint, whose career he had watched over from its earliest manhood, and whom he had himself ordained