Note 5 — Chapter I · INTRODUCTORY.

Dr. Sullivan does not think Christianity was fully established by the middle of the seventh century. ‘The Irish Church organisation,’ he says, ‘was ill calculated to influence the social habits and the political life of the people; unlike the diocesan and centralised system of the Latin Church. Hence a high spiritual life and intellectual cultivation within the numerous cœnobiums was quite compatible with practical paganism and disorder outside.’