Saint Cellach of Armagh

Cellach of Armagh or Celsus or Celestinus (1080–1129) was Archbishop of Armagh and an important contributor to the reform of the Irish church in the twelfth century. He is venerated in the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Cellach. Though a member of the laicised ecclesiastical dynasty of Clann Sínaig, he took holy vows and gained priestly ordination. This put an end to the anomalous state of affairs, in effect since 966, whereby the supreme head of the Irish Church had been a layman. Following the Synod of Ráith Bressail, in which a diocesan structure for Ireland was established, he became the first metropolitan primate of all Ireland. Cellach was the son of Áed mac Máele Ísu meic Amalgada of the Clann Sínnaig. Áed had been abbot of Armagh and Coarb Pátraic ("heir" or "successor" of Saint Patrick; head of the church of Armagh) from 1074 to 1091. The Clann Sínaig, of the Uí Echdach sept of the Airthir in Airgialla, had monopolised the office of abbot of Armagh since 966. In later historiography Clann Sínaig has been associated with the type of secularisation that made a church reform necessary, described by Marie Térèse Flanagan as an "hereditarily entrenched laicized ecclesiastical dynasty" and even less flatteringly denounced by Bernard of Clairvaux as that "generatio mala et adultera". Following the death of his granduncle Domnall mac Amalgada in August 1105, Cellach succeeded as abbot of Armagh and Coarb Pátraic. The Annals of Ulster notes that this was done "by the choice of the men of Ireland". Unlike his lay predecessors/ancestors, he sought priestly ordination, which Flanagan has described as a "decisive reform step". It was in accordance with the first Synod of Cashel (1101), which had legislated against laymen holding ecclesiastical offices. He received orders Saturday 23 September 1105, on "the feast of Adomnán".