es appended to canons which
specially concerned those provinces. One of them begins thus: "If the
Connaught clergy agree to this ... we desire it, and if they do not"--in
that case they may do as they please, with certain limitations. The
clergy of Leinster are accorded a similar liberty. It is obvious that if
among the members of the Council there had been men who could speak with
authority for the provinces mentioned such notes need not, and
therefore could not, have been written. The Council represented Munster,
Ulster and Meath. It was national, not because it could speak for all
Ireland, but because it made laws for all Ireland.

I must now give an account of those laws, so far as they relate to the
organization of the Church. I follow the _Annals of Clonenagh_, as
reported by Keating: but in two or three places I have been obliged to
amend his text.[49]

The fathers began by appealing to English precedent. "Just as twelve
bishops were fixed under Canterbury in the south of England, and twelve
bishops in the north under the city of York," so it was ordained that
there should be twelve bishops in the south of Ireland, and twelve in
the north. The constitution of the Irish Church was henceforth, it would
seem, to be a copy of that of the English Church. But, as it happens,
neither in 1110 nor in any other year of its history, had the Church of
England twelve sees under Canterbury and twelve under York. How then can
we explain the statement of the Synod? The answer is simple. Bede[50]
preserves a letter of Pope Gregory the Great, written in 601, in which
St. Augustine of Canterbury was directed to consecrate twelve bishops as
his own suffragans. He was also ordered to consecrate a bishop for York,
who, if his mission proved successful, was likewise to consecrate twelve
suffragans, and to be promoted to the dignity of a metropolitan. It is
clear that the Synod found its precedent in this letter, not observing
that Pope Gregory's ordinance was never carried into effect. But they
made another mistake. For Gregory intended that there should be twelve
bishops in the north of England, and twelve in the south, exclusive of
the archbishops, twenty-six in all; while it is evident that the Council
of Rathbreasail intended that there should be twelve bishops in the
north of Ireland, and twelve in the south, including the archbishops,
twenty-four in all. Some one whose lead the Synod followed--probably the
papal legate--had read