Lanfranc bears
testimony, "was nourished in monastic institutions from his
boyhood,"[18] and certainly not, in an Irish religious house. Donough
O'Hanley, before his consecration, was a monk of Canterbury; Samuel
O'Hanley was a monk of St. Albans;[19] Malchus was called to Waterford
from Walkelin's monastery at Winchester;[20] Gilbert of Limerick had
visited Normandy,[21] and at a later date we find him assisting at the
consecration of a bishop in Westminster Abbey.[22] Such men had had
training which familiarized them with Roman methods of Church
Government. They were well fitted to organize and rule their dioceses.
And if they desired to imbue the Celtic Church with the principles which
they had learnt, and on which they acted, their nationality gave them a
ground of appeal which no Dane could have had. It is of course not to be
assumed that all of them were so disposed. The Danish Christians of
Dublin not only stood aside from the Celtic Church; for reasons which
will appear later they were inimical to it, and it to them. Their
bishops, with the possible exception of the first, made profession of
canonical obedience to the English Primates. Not only so: they gloried
in their subjection to Canterbury. "We have always been willing subjects
of your predecessors," wrote the burgesses and clergy of Dublin to
Ralph, archbishop of Canterbury, when the see was vacant in 1121. And
then, after a reference to the great jealousy of Cellach of Armagh
against them, they proceed to declare, "We will not obey his command,
but desire to be always under your rule. Therefore we beseech you to
promote Gregory to the episcopate if you wish to retain any longer the
parish which we have kept for you so long."[23] It was clearly
impossible that this diocese could directly influence the Irish in the
direction of reform. But no such obstacle barred the path of the first
bishops of Limerick and Waterford. Gilbert owed no allegiance to
Canterbury; Malchus was consecrated at Canterbury, but he soon escaped
his profession of obedience to Anselm.[24] Both became leaders of the
romanizing movement in Ireland.

But the influence of the Danish dioceses on the Irish Church was not
limited to the personal action of their bishops. Indirectly all of them,
including Dublin, had a share in promoting the Reformation. Archbishop
Lanfranc, as early as 1072, claimed that his primacy included Ireland as
well as England.[25] The claim, curiously enough, was base