ARMAGH, ARCHDIOCESE of. — Based in Armagh, a city of Northern Ireland approximately 120 km north of Dublin and the capital of a county. The name derives from the Gaelic Ard Macha, “height of Macha.” The see, together with its primatial dignity, dates back to St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, who around 445 erected there a church, a monastery and, it seems, a school, which became very famous in the following centuries. It was there that, around 807, the Liber Ardmachanus was compiled, an important work written in Latin and Old Gaelic, containing almost the entire New Testament, several ecclesiastical writings, the Confession and two Lives of St. Patrick. It is now preserved in Dublin.
In exercising their primatial right, the archbishops of A., from the eighth through the thirteenth century, visited various regions of Ireland in order to strengthen discipline and to collect the taxes owed to them for the works (it seems) of the see. This visitation was interrupted after the English invasion.
Among the great figures who occupied the see of A., the most noteworthy are St. Malachy (v.), and Blessed Oliviero Plunkett (v.). The diocese comprises 55 parishes, two of which belong to the archiepiscopal mensa; 169 diocesan priests and 78 religious priests. The population is 202,850, of whom 131,600 are Catholics. There are eight suffragan dioceses.
BISL.: J. Lanigan, Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, Dublin 1829; Annals of the Four Masters, ed. O' Donovan, there 1856; J. O' Hanlon, Life of st. Malachy, there 1859; P. F. Moran, Memoirs of Most Rev. Dr. Oliver Plunkett, there 1861; J. Healy, Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars, there 1890; J. Stuart, History of A., ed. Coleman, there 1900; J. Linchaeus, De Praesulibus Hiberniae, ed. O' Doherty, there 1944. — The Liber Ardmachanus was edited by Gwynn in Dublin in 1913. Dionisio Mac Daid