How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

Patrick found purpose in Ireland and created a cultural framework rooted in nonviolence for his Irish converts. Cahill claims that Roman culture held no influence over his Christianity, unlike Christian missions before his. Though Patrick ended the Irish slave trade and brought peace to society, “Irish psychological identity” survived conversion (148). Thus, Patrick allowed some pagan elements to continue in the form of May Day and Hallowe’en, for example, which supported Christianity’s successful expansion and integration into Irish culture. Conversion also brought educational development because Patrick recognized literacy’s important role within Christianity: "[...] though Christianity was not inextricably wedded to Roman custom, it could not survive without Roman literacy. And so the first Irish Christians also became the first Irish literates" (150-51).

Ireland’s conversion was peaceful, so the country has no early Christian martyrs, unlike other parts of Europe. Because literal martyrdom was unavailable to them, Irish Christians created the “Green Martyrdom.” Religious people sought isolation in Ireland’s mountains, forests, and small islands, mirroring the eremitical lives of the early Christian desert fathers in Egypt and Syria. This tradition birthed Irish monasticism and gave rise to Ireland’s first urban centers as settlements sprang up around monasteries. Moreover, these institutions were homes to schools, making them university towns that, in the spirit of Irish benevolence, welcomed both commoners and elites without requiring that they take the habit.

Scholarly work thrived in these newly established institutions. Irish clerics gathered manuscripts in the libraries of these religious houses, including Greek and Latin classical literature. As Cahill writes:

In a land where literacy had previously been unknown, in a world where the old literate civilizations were sinking fast beneath successive waves of barbarism, the white Gospel page, shining in all the little oratories of Ireland, acted as a pledge […] (163).

These monks studied Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and they produced works in their Celtic tongue. Though Irish monks viewed pagan texts like the Tain critically, they avoided culling their collections. Indeed, in addition to copying classical texts, Irish scribes preserved Celtic literature and often embellished the margins of the classical manuscripts they copied with Irish verse.

Intricate decoration fused with the Irish literary tradition that was birthed in these monastic writing rooms. Blending the Latin alphabet with Ogham, the Irish medieval alphabet, gave rise to intricately decorated initials and headings like those that appear in the Book of Kells. The Irish developed two scripts, half-uncial and Irish miniscule, both of which made copied texts easier to read. Copyists on the Continent adopted the latter, which became the basis for the standard script of the Middle Ages. Decorative styles also drew inspiration from pre-Christian Irish art, such as the Boyne Valley’s megaliths that are embellished with zigzag designs and spirals. The codices copied in Ireland made their way to Britain and Continental Europe thanks to the missionaries who followed in Patrick’s footsteps.

Roman Christianity was centered on the bishoprics that were derived from Roman administrative models. However, Ireland was mostly rural, so the abbots of Ireland’s monasteries were more influential than the bishops. Abbesses like Brigid of Kildare supervised expansive, wealthy religious communities that fostered learning. Many of these institutions were double monasteries that served both monks and nuns, something of which the Roman church would have disapproved. Women like Brigid who governed these coeducational religious houses could rise to such positions of power due to the Irish custom of female hospitality, which aligned with the church’s monastic principles. In fact, Brigid might have gone so far as to act as a bishop. These houses ignored Roman monastic rule books like the Benedictine rule and forged their own path by developing private confession and inherited abbacies.

Columcille—more commonly known by Columba, the latinized version of his name—was a product of this bold Irish monasticism. He founded monasteries all over Ireland, including in Kells and Durrow, before he was exiled in 564 CE to the isle of Iona off the Northern Scottish coast. Taking 12 monks with him, Columba founded another Irish monastery.

Rome’s contraction and the rising population of Germanic peoples transformed Western Europe by the middle of the sixth century. Thus, Irish clerics acted independently of the papacy from which they were disconnected. But religious recluses from the Continent arrived in Ireland when barbarian migrations pushed them out, and they brought manuscripts. Meanwhile, Europe’s libraries crumbled. The Roman church made some efforts to rebuild these libraries but had little success. Meanwhile, Irish monasteries became “Europe’s publishers” (183), with Columba’s Iona acting as an intermediary that linked Ireland to the Continental book trade.

The experience that Cahill describes as “White Martyrdom" triumphed as the practice of hermetic “Green Martyrdom” declined. The white martyrs, who chose to suffer through their ascetic lifestyles but were not subjected to violence like the "red martyrs" whose blood was shed, spread Irish monasticism to Britain and the Continent. They included religious men and women who traveled as far as Greenland and Kiev. Moreover, religious houses in Ireland welcomed foreign visitors, who then took the Irish Christianity that inspired them back to their homes.

The Irish mission at Iona Christianized the Picts and Scots and attracted more pilgrims to the island than the monastery could hold. Columba’s successors began to establish sister houses and took this mission to the English realm of Northumbria, where St. Aidan founded an island monastery called Lindisfarne.

Columbanus was another missionary working in Patrick’s tradition. In the late 500s CE, he and 12 monks departed Ireland for Gaul, where he established three monasteries and converted some of the Germanic Sueves. However, he alienated local bishops and the Burgundian crown. His exile resulted in Columbanus's establishing Bobbio, the “first Italo-Irish monastery” in Northern Italy (190). From his new home, Columbanus wrote a critical letter to the pope over a heretical Christian sect called Nestorianism; Cahill notes that the letter's writing style exemplifies Columbanus's “swaggering” and his “Irishness” (191).

Columbanus’s extant letters, poetry, and sermons reflect his familiarity with classical literature, and the more than 60 religious houses he founded across Europe reintroduced classical knowledge to early medieval people. Likewise, Columbanus’s Irish companion, St. Gall, assembled an eclectic collection of pieces that includes classical literary works like Virgil’s Aeneid, writings of the early church fathers, and an Irish poem. These men were familiar with Christian and classical writings as well as vernacular Irish literature. Cahill claims, “[…] Latin literature would almost surely have been lost without the Irish, and illiterate Europe would hardly have developed its great national literatures without [...] the Irish, the first vernacular literature to be written down” (193).