ABSTRACT
The first reliable date in Irish history is 431. The source of our information is not an Irish text but the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, a resident of Marseilles and partisan of Augustine in the great controversies surrounding Pelagius and his doctrines that rocked the church in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. Prosper’s Chronicle records the official introduction of Christianity to Ireland. His words are brief but their significance great: ‘To the Irish believing in Christ, Palladius, having been ordained by Pope Celestine, is sent as first bishop’.1 Historians have linked this statement with an earlier one in the Chronicle, 429:
The Pelagian Agricola, son of the Pelagian bishop Severianus, corrupts the churches of Britain by the propagation of his doctrines. But at the instigation of the deacon Palladius, Pope Celestine sends Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, in his stead, who overthrows the heretics and guides the Britons to the catholic faith.2
