Beginning in 734, during the incumbency of Primate Congus, it continued until long after the Cambro-Norman invasion, but ceased as soon as Norman prelates succeeded to the see.

These collections seem to have been made at irregular intervals and were probably for the purpose of keeping up the famous school of Armagh, said at one time to contain 7,000 students, as well as for the restoration, often needed, of the church and other ecclesiastical buildings when destroyed by fire or plundered in war.

The seizure of the primacy of Armagh by laymen in the 11th century has received great prominence owing to St. Bernard's denunciation of it in his "Life of St. Malachy", but the abuse was not without a parallel on the continent of Europe.

The chiefs of the tribe in whose territory Armagh stood usurped the position and temporal emoluments of the primacy and discharged by deputy the ecclesiastical functions.

The abuse continued for eight generations until Cellach, known as St. Celsus (1105–29), who was intruded as a layman, had himself consecrated bishop, and ruled the see with great wisdom.

In 1111 he held a great synod at Fiadh-Mic-Aengus at which were present fifty bishops, 300 priests, and 3,000 other ecclesiastics, and also Murrough O'Brian, King of Southern Ireland, and his nobles.

At the Synod of Kells, held in 1152 and presided over by Cardinal Paparo, the Pope's legate Gelasius received the pallium and at the same time three others were handed over to the new metropolitan sees of Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam.

The successor of Gelasius in the see, Cornelius Mac Concaille, who died at Chambéry the following year, on a journey to Rome, has been venerated ever since in that locality as a saint.

This Bull laid the groundwork of a bitter and protracted controversy between the Archbishops of Armagh and of Dublin, concerning the primatial right of the former to have his cross carried before him and to try ecclesiastical cases in the diocese of the latter.

As the first Anglo-Norman adventurers who came to Ireland showed very little scruple in despoiling the churches and monasteries, Armagh suffered considerably from their depredations.

The English kings also began to claim possession of the temporalities of the sees during vacancies and to insist on the newly elected bishops suing them humbly for their restitution.

Primate Patrick O'Scanlan (1261–70), also a Dominican, rebuilt to a large extent the cathedral of Armagh and founded a house for Franciscans in that city.

Primate Nicholas MacMaelisu (1272–1302) convened an important assembly of the bishops and clergy of Ireland at Tuam in 1291, at which they bound themselves by solemn oaths to resist the encroachments of the secular power.

Primate Richard Fitz-Ralph (1346–60) contended publicly both in Ireland and England with the Mendicant Orders on the question of their vows and privileges.

During the English period, the primates rarely visited the city of Armagh, preferring to reside at the arch-episcopal manors of Dromiskin and Termonfechan, in the county of Louth, which was within the Pale.

During the reign of Henry VIII, Primate Cromer, being suspected of heresy by the Holy See, was deposed in favour of Robert Wauchope (1539–51), a distinguished theologian, who assisted at the Council of Trent.

In the beginning of the reign of Queen Mary I, Dowdall (1553–58) was appointed properly by the Pope on account of the great zeal he had shown against Protestantism.

Edward MacGauran, who succeeded him (1587–94), was very active in soliciting aid from the pope and Philip II of Spain for the Irish who were then engaged in a struggle with the Crown.

He took a prominent part in the Irish Confederation of Kilkenny and was appointed a member of the Supreme Council of twenty-four persons who carried on the government of the country in the name of King Charles I.

He opposed Peter Valesius Walsh, the author of the "Loyal Remonstrance" (1661, 1672) to King Charles II, and died in exile in France.

Shortly after his accession to the see, he was obliged to defend the primatial rights of Armagh against the claims put forward for Dublin by its archbishop, Peter Talbot.

A. T. H. P. Talbot replied to two years later in a dissertation styled Primatus Dublinensis; or the chief reasons on which the Church of Dublin relies in the possession and prosecution of her right to the Primacy of Ireland.

In 1679, Oliver Plunkett was arrested on a charge of conspiring to bring 20,000 Frenchmen into the country and of having levied moneys on his clergy for the purpose of maintaining 70,000 men for an armed rebellion against the Crown.

After being confined in Dublin Castle for many months, he was presented for trial on these and other charges in Dundalk; but the jury, though all Protestants, refused to find a true bill against him.

Nevertheless, in spite of these difficulties he has left his name to posterity by the learned work Jus Primatiale Armacanum, written by command of the pope in defence of the primatial rights of Armagh.

He was succeeded by his nephew, Bernard MacMahon (1737–47), then Bishop of Clogher, who is described as a prelate remarkable for zeal, charity, prudence, and sound doctrine.

The persecution having subsided to a great extent, he was not harried like his predecessors, but nevertheless could not be induced to live permanently in his diocese, a circumstance which was the occasion of much discontent among his clergy and led to a temporary suspension from his duties.

The Corporation of Drogheda, wearing their robes and carrying the mace and sword, appeared on the scene and forbade the ceremony to proceed, but their protest was disregarded.

Patrick Curtis (1819–32), who had been rector of the Irish College of Salamanca, was appointed to the see in more hopeful times, and lived to witness the emancipation of the Roman Church in the UK.

In the building of the sacristy, library, synod-hall, muniment-room, the purchase in fee-simple of the site, and the interior decorations and altars, he spent more than £50,000 on the cathedral.