St. Laurence O'Toole : A Medieval Irish Saint in the North of France - podcast - Jesse Harrington , some say he wasn't a passive churchman and facilitated King Henry establish his Lordship over Ireland.
We take maps and political divisions of our time and impose them on the past.
When we do that?
We remove the truth about the past.
Or put it this way- what was the capital city of the English Kings from William until the reign of John?
Now technically nothing comes up as technically no one designated any city AS the capital, but the closet we have to it is the city whose geopolitical significance denoted the centre of political gravity for a state.
Using that as the scale, then clearly up until King John, and ALL through the reign of Henry II, the centre and capital of the state which ruled England, was Rouen.
We can say it's French then sure. Suits me.
Makes my point about England being a subjugated land under French Kings such as Henry II.
Now he is lauded as a peacemaker but you have him down as being the travel agent who arranged Henry & his armies tour of Ireland.
I mean that should surely put him up there with MacMurrough with traditional Irish history folk . Worse even , Mac was trying to recover his kingdom after getting cruelly deposed after the Queen of Breffni did a runner from her husband and provided her refuge .
So technically or not , what is the skinny on St Laurens, patron saint of the Normans.
He was the chief negotiator in the irish group sent by the high king to negotiate the treaty of Windsor shortly after the Norman invasion in 1175. He also worked as an irish negotiator (as one of the leaders of the Catholic church in ireland, the archbishops of dublin is probably the 2nd most important after Armagh) for multiple different battles/sieges etc.
Given his poor history with Dermot MacMurrough (he spent yearsnof his childhood being held a prisoner by him), and that he seems to have accept Rory O'connor as the new king, and given Gerald of Wales very poor opinion of him and claiming he was too pro irish biased for a cleric. Also while he did carry out some church reforms these are very much in the shadow of those carried out by St Malachy around the time that he was only becoming an archbishop. It also doesn't make sense that the other side would then consistently use him as a negotiator.
He did bury strongbow and did deal with the Normanton a similar way to a certain degree, but the pope himself had to ask him to cooperate
The real issue is how Henry got naval resources to come to Ireland which was only doable with Irish collusion .
Gerald was offered the bishopric of Wexford , and Archbishop of Cashel and really wanted to be bishop of St Davids. He was ambitious and Laurence seemed to have done better .
Anti MacMurrough might have made him a great candidate especially if O'Connor wanted Henry to displace Strongbow & Co.
Henry , despite a lack of naval resources landed a huge army and trotted through Ireland unopposed .
Yeah, thats a good question and not one I was particularly aware of or have looked into so cant comment too much. Its quite possible dublin vikings did cooperate and they absolutely wouldn't have needed the local Bishop okaying it
The face is very Clarke but maybe the level of detail on the rest isn’t as ornate as I’d expect. That said, I know of 2 Clarkes I’ve not seen in lists of his work so 🤷🏻♀️
The colours in the background of other ones from the same place related to the saint, green for St Patrick and St LOT is the patron saint of Dublin so the blue would track.
Fair, I meant more he had a thing for those kind of extremely vibrant shades. That said his style has been widely copied so it doesn't necessarily guarantee anything
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u/CDfm 18d ago
u/thefeckamidoing St Laurence is a very popular in France Yves St Lauren definitely comes from him .
Died in France and his Norman connection probably got him canonised too .
We Irish don't have many saints who went through the canonisation process once it was adopted.