Page:The ancient Irish church.djvu/131

 with Romish ideas. The first ecclesiastical office which he held in England was that of abbot of a monastery from which the Irish had been ejected, because they, 'being left to their choice, would rather quit the place than adopt the Catholic Easter and other canonical rites according to the custom of the Roman Apostolic Church.' His opponent in the controversy was Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, who had been sent out from Iona.

The result of the discussion was a foregone conclusion. When the Irish had already been made to choose between conformity to Rome and expulsion from the king's dominions, it was not hard to guess to which side that king's verdict would be most favourable. He decided against the Irish use. Most of the Saxons who had been instructed in the Irish way were contented to abide by the king's decision. But Colman, with many followers, both English and Irish, chose to retire rather than conform. 'Perceiving that his doctrine was rejected and his sect despised,' he returned to Iona, and afterwards settled with his followers at Innisboffin, 'the island of the white heifer,' off the west coast of Ireland.

Meanwhile, an effort, though not a very vigorous one, was made to bring the Irish Church itself to the Roman way of thinking. Laurentius, who was successor of Augustine in the see of Canterbury, wrote a letter in the year 605 to the 'Lords, bishops and abbots throughout all Ireland.' Only the beginning of this epistle has been preserved. And it seems to have been altogether without effect, as indeed might have been expected. It was not by such easy-going efforts that the Irish would be induced to give up the usages to which they had been for so long a time accustomed.

In 634 Pope Honorius addressed a letter to the