Bishoprics were founded at Waterford and Wexford later than in Dublin. Malcus, the first Bishop of Waterford, was consecrated at Canterbury, and on his arrival in Waterford in 1096, he began to build a church, dedicated, like that of Dublin, to the Holy Trinity.[220]
Some years later we hear of a Bishop of Limerick, Gilla or Gilbert, who does not seem to have been consecrated in England, but who was in close touch with the Archbishop of Canterbury.[221] He it was who convoked the synod at Rathbresail, at which it was decided to divide Ireland into dioceses: “there,” says Keating, “the sees and dioceses of the bishops of Ireland were regulated; Dublin was excluded, because it was not customary for its bishop to receive consecration except from the Archbishop of Canterbury.”[222] Limerick and Waterford were placed under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Cashel, but this decree seems to have been ignored by the people of Limerick, for they elected their next bishop, Patrick, in the ordinary way and sent him to England for consecration.[223] It is uncertain whether the Waterford people obeyed, as the records merely mention the names of the succeeding bishops.
A still more important synod was held at Kells in 1132. There the decision of the previous synod regarding the division of the country into dioceses was ratified, and archbishoprics were established at Dublin, Armagh, Cashel, and Tuam. Henceforth the bishops of Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford were consecrated in Ireland, and this marked the close of the connection between Canterbury and the Celtic Church.
[149] Only one reference is to be found in the Annals. See _Annals of the Four Masters_, A.D. 728.
[150] Eoin MacNeill: “The Norse Kingdom of the Hebrides” (_Scottish Review_, Vol. XXXIX., pp. 254-276).
[151] It is interesting to recall that a new development in shipbuilding, probably due to the same causes, was taking place in England about the same time. The _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ first mentions a naval encounter with Vikings under the year 875, and some twenty years later describes the long ships, “shaped neither like the Frisian nor the Danish,” which Alfred had commanded to be built to oppose the _oescs_, or Danish ships.