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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
not merely the greatest scribes, but the greatest artists,
miniature painters, metal-workers, stone-cutters and
skilled craftsmen of their age. There is no more beautiful
book in the world than the Book of Kells. The whole
of antiquity, whether the Greek, Roman or Etruscan, has
bequeathed to us no lovelier jewels than the Ardagh
Chalice and the Tara Brooch. And altho these unique
works of art were executed in Ireland itself, they supply
ample evidence of the skill of the Irishmen who labored
abroad for the intellectual and spiritual resurrection of
the peoples among whom they dwelt through the teaching
of Christian theology and the channels of all the sciences
and all the arts.
Thus over a wide radius in the regions now called
Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland,
Austria and Upper Italy Irishmen and their disciples
planted or restored the root and stem of Christian culture,
drilling and training for future work the raw tribes who
were to make up the great nations of the modern world.
So Ireland fulfilled her mission in life, which the bene-
ficiaries were to forget, but which in the sight of heaven
was to be her crowning glory. "Ireland can indeed lay
claim to a great past," says the writer already quoted.
"She can not only boast of having been the birthplace and
abode of high culture in the fifth and sixth centuries,
at a time when the Roman Empire was being undermined
by the alliances and inroads of the German tribes which
threatened to sink the whole Continent into barbarism, but
also of having made strenuous efforts in the seventh and
up to the tenth century to spread her learning among the
German and Romance peoples, thus forming the actual
foundations of our present continental civilization." 1
iZimmer, Preusslche Jahrbiicher, Jan., 1887, translated into English as "The
Irish Element in Medieval Culture," p. 3.
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