Ireland and Civilization
From the book “How the Irish saved Civilization” by Thomas Cahill
While visiting family in Vancouver before flying to Singapore, I took the opportunity to read a book recommended by a reader after he read my travel posting on Ballycastle. Thanks Jim.
The book is “How the Irish saved Civilization” by Thomas Cahill. I found it a fascinating read which gave me a new appreciation of the Irish people. In particular I learned a great deal more about St. Patrick and how his evangelization of Ireland helped save Western Europe from the loss of 12 centuries of classical civilization.
After Rome fell in 410 to the Visigoths, many parts of Western Europe gradually lost their libraries and schools. Ireland was the only place not invaded due to its isolation. The Irish at that time were comprised of fierce marauding tribes who raided villages in England. They captured young men to serve as slaves in Ireland. This was the fate of a 16 year old boy named Patricius who was educated under the Roman system. Patricius served in severe hardship for six years as a slave herding sheep. His desolation, discomfort and suffering led him to depend on the only thing he could fall back on — the faith of his childhood. Patricius grew very fervent and began having visions. In one of these visions God told him to go home. He walked two hundred miles to the coast confident in God’s protection and finally made his way back to his family in England.
After a few years back in England he felt God prompting him to return to Ireland to evangelize the Irish. He made his way to Gaul (France) and trained as a priest and then as a bishop. Later he left for Ireland where he began his mission. Amazingly, Ireland, the land of fierce warriors, was evangelized without bloodshed. Within ten years Patricius (St. Patrick) christianized Ireland, brought peace to the land and did away with slavery. Numerous monasteries and places of learning were established. The monks spent time copying and reproducing old manuscripts not only of Christian interest but the classics of the Greeks and Romans, as well as Ireland’s own pagan stories of ancient days.
While Ireland was beginning to learn to read, most of Western Europe was slowly losing that ability. As monasteries in Ireland spread, the number of copied manuscripts available for reading and learning spread as well. While the Irish were reading and spreading the stories of civilization, learning was dormant and losing influence in Western Europe. The Irish monks made up for the dwindling libraries of classical learning in Western Europe.
Thus Ireland was very much the conservator of Western Civilization until its conquest by the Vikings in the 8th century.
Cahill prompts us to learn the lessons of history. I leave you with an ending quote from his book (which I do recommend to those interested in Irish history and the consequence of the rise and fall of civilization).
“More than a billion people in our world today survive on less than $370 a year, while Americans, who constitute 5% of the world’s population, purchase 50% of its cocaine. … Perhaps history is always divided in Romans and Catholics — or, better, catholics. The Romans are the rich and powerful who run things their way and must always accrue more because they instinctively believe that there will never be enough to go around; the catholics, as their name implies, are universalists who instinctively believe that all humanity makes one family, that every human being is an equal child of God, and that God will provide. … If we are to be saved, it will not be by Romans but by saints.”
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