A History of Ireland in Song

How the Irish Saved Civilization

%T How the Irish Saved Civilization
%S The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe
%A Thomas Cahill
%I Hodder & Stoughton
%C London
%D 1995
%O paperback
%G ISBN 0340637870
%P pp 246

I had the idea that this book dated from the '60s, or earlier even, but the title page says 1995. The central theme is the preservation of Latin and Greek manuscripts by the Irish religious orders at a time when literacy had almost disappeared throughout Western Europe, but the book encompasses far more than that. The background is set by examining the twilight years of the Western Roman Empire and the pagan Celtic culture that St Patrick resolved to convert to Christianity, before we come to the very Irish Christianity that that saint inspired. He paints a marvellous picture both of the pagan Celts and of Christian Ireland. The book sometimes seemed a bit inaccurate to me, especially on the late Roman empire — or is it that my knowledge of that period is mostly out of Gibbon, and well out of date? However, like Gibbon, the author takes a very personal, even idiosyncratic view of his subject, and I think the book is all the better for that. Whatever, it certainly tells the general reader a damn sight more about "the Celts" than the Penguin book of that name, which might be fine for an Archaeology undergraduate, but is a dreary enough read for anyone else.

In conclusion, this really is a "must-read".

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