The Whore of Babylon

[gaelic cowboy]

Wow, I can't believe I started a serious discussion on the Culdees. That was a joke people, as was the 25AD thing. The Culdees were an obscure monastic reform movement from around the 8th century IIRC. But they've gained some sort of mythical status in the Protestant mindset in Northern Ireland with the whole ethnic/religous debate over Celts and Cruithin and Catholicism and Celtic Christianity, with the Culdees supposedly defending the purer Celtic Church from the influence of Rome. Another related favourite is the debate over whether St. Patrick was a Protestant. As for the Celtic Church, well it was distinct from Rome, but it sure wasn't Protestant. It got very superstitious with parading saints bones and things like that.

Yes I remember a lot of that stuff it seemed to start entering public discourse in maybe early to middle nineties especcially the Cruithin stuff which came from an earlier more academic field. It's rubbish really mostly used as a kind of "Lost Tribe of Israel" narrative to further UDI for the North some really bad fellas were involved in spreading that stuff back in the day. I think it was picked up again in the nineties because there was a feeling under the surface the Conservatives were going to betray the UUP and the wider unionist community.

There was no "Celtic Church" as such but it was heavily influenced by a more I suppose Celtic cultural tradition stuff like Abbots being top dog etc. The Abbot of Iona was effectively the boss and there were many differences of doctrine with Rome which for a long time was completely cut off diplomaticaly. It would not be true to say it was separate but it was not administered by Rome either it was on autopilot effectively for a while till Rome got back on its feet.

The decline of Celtic Christianity only really began after the victory of the Roman faction at the Synod of Whitby in 644 AD

Correct. The faction was defeated and retreated to more remote areas of Britain they of course acknowledged the successor of Peter as it were but had wanted a separate system I believe there is precedent for it today in Western Ukraine.