In 1106, when the head or
coarb of the see of
Armagh had been handed from layman to layman of the Ui Sinaich family, Celsus (Ceallach or Ceallach) became the eighth in line. He wanted to end that tradition of lay control of the episcopal see, and so he became first a priest and then was consecrated a bishop, becoming
Archbishop of Armagh. He assumed his right to this position as a bishop, but renounced his right to it as a layman. Fearing that his relatives would try to displace him and take away the attributes of his power, he brought the Bachal Isu to
Ballyboughal around 1113. When Celsus died in 1129, he named an
Archbishop not related to him. His choice:
Maelmhaedhoc O'Morgair, the eventual
St. Malachy. He also send Malachy the Bachal Isu, but it was seized by Morrough, a cousin of Celsus, who turned the staff over to Flann Ui Sinaich for safe-keeping, preventing Malachy from assuming his position. Morrough died in 1134 and was succeeded as lay lord of Armagh by Celsus's brother Niall, but his own family now saw "the degradation and disgrace brought upon the diocese by this lay claim" and drove out Niall. In 1135 Flann Ui Sinaich died, and St. Malachy was able to purchase the Bachal Isu from his successor and to retrieve it on 7 July of that year from a cave where it had been hidden away, becoming finally archbishop. In 1137, Malachy resigned his archbishopric to Gelasius, who apparently returned the Bachal Isu to Ballyboughal, where in 1113 Bishop Samuel U h-Aingli had set aside land for the preservation and protection of the staff. In 1173,
Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke removed the staff from Ballyboughal and sent it to
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. The staff remained in Christ Church until the
Protestant Reformation. ==Destruction of the Staff==