Editing Celtic Christianity (section)

===Ireland===
[[File:Stpatrick hilloftara.jpg|thumb|right|St. Patrick]]
{{see also|List of Irish saints}}
By the early fifth century, the religion had spread to Ireland, which had never been part of the Roman Empire. There were Christians in Ireland before [[Palladius (bishop of Ireland)|Palladius]] arrived in 431 as the first missionary bishop sent by Rome. His mission does not seem to have been entirely successful. The subsequent mission of Saint Patrick, traditionally starting in 432,<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Bury
 |first1               = J. B.
 |author-link1         = J. B. Bury
 |orig-date            = 1905
 |title                = Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=Ow_tOVnda_8C
 |series               = Cosimo classics biography
 |date = December 2008
 |location             = New York
 |publisher            = Cosimo, Inc.
 |publication-date     = 2008
 |page                 = 331
 |isbn                 = 9781605204024
 |access-date          = 5 July 2022
 |quote                = [...] the year of [Patrick's] coming to Ireland, which rests upon clear and unvarying tradition, A.D. 432 [...].
}} 
</ref>
established churches in conjunction with ''civitates'' like his own in [[Armagh]]; small enclosures in which groups of Christians, often of both sexes and including the married, lived together, served in various roles and ministered to the local population.<ref>{{harvnb|Hughes|2005|pp=306 & 310}}</ref><ref>Riley, 82–93, 95–96</ref>{{full citation needed|date=May 2017}} Patrick set up diocesan structures with a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons. During the late 5th and 6th centuries true monasteries became the most important centres: in Patrick's own see of Armagh the change seems to have happened before the end of the 5th century, thereafter the bishop was the abbot also.<ref>{{harvnb|Ryan|1931|pp=100–102}}</ref> Within a few generations of the arrival of the first missionaries the monastic and clerical class of the isle had become fully integrated with the culture of Latin letters.  Besides Latin, Irish ecclesiastics developed a written form of [[Old Irish language|Old Irish]]. Others who influenced the development of Christianity in Ireland include [[Saint Brigid|Brigid]] ({{circa}} 451 – 525), Saint [[Moluag]] ({{circa}} 510 – 592, who evangelised in the area of present-day Scotland) and Saint [[Caillín]] (fl. {{circa | 570}}).