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CHAPTER VIII
WESTERN CIVILIZATION'S BASE OF SUPPLY
I. Military Strength of Medieval Ireland. 2. Land of Enormous
Wealth. 3. Celtic, Greek, and Roman Europe. 4. Ireland's Abundance
of Gold. 5. Exodus of Irish Scholars. 6. Parallel Promulga-
tion of Civilization and Christianity.
i. MILITARY STRENGTH OF MEDIEVAL IRELAND
BEHIND
the men engaged in the great work of
rehabilitation abroad lay as base of supply 'an
Ireland very
different from the Ireland familiar
to us in recent times. Medieval Ireland was not only
the freest and most enlightened country on earth, but
also the richest and almost the most compact and powerful.
It is inconceivable that the men of Ireland could
have done the things they did unless she was all these
things. But we do not need to argue back from the work
of Irish scholars and missionaries abroad. We have all
the data necessary to a complete presentment of Ireland
itself and the deeds performed by her. When the first
Dane appeared on her coasts at the close of the eighth
century Ireland could look back on an authentic history
of at least a thousand years during which no foreigner
had dared to violate her by attempted occupation.
Dating from that very century there is still, as has been
noted, extant a history in the old Irish tongue which
speaks of the last invasion of Ireland by the Gaels themselves
and of the establishment of the kingdom in the time
of Alexander the Great. 1
From that time forward the
Gaels of Ireland had never known any rule but Irish rule,
administered through all the clans, under a single royal
l See p. 29 supra.
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