Open [38.2 MB]

Ireland and the Making
of Britain
in or before the twelfth century. Its language, however,
is pure Irish, exactly paralleling the speech used in Irish
books of the same age. Complete national unity, a uniform
literary speech, a like culture, prevailed through the
broad Gaedhaltacht of Eire 1
and Alba.
We have the testimony of the Irish records that the
great Irish colleges were in active existence not at differ-
ent periods but all together from the sixth century on-
ward. When we bear in mind that there were also, dur-
ing the whole period, the secular or lay schools, to which
I will refer later, and which tho smaller were far more
numerous and scattered all over the country we shall
have some idea, as one writer remarks, of the universal
love of learning that existed in Ireland in those days and
of the general spread of education. 2
3.
"PHILOSOPHY" AND "WISDOM"
Irish monasticism differed from continental monasti-
cism in its intellectual outlook. Monachism in Egypt
and on the European mainland simply represented flight
from an apparently doomed and demoralized world. It
was in response to the yearning and the need which men
felt of getting away from worry and fear, and villainy
and contention. It eschewed ambition and undue effort
1 The Gaelic or Irish name for Ireland is Eire, genitive Eireann, whence
Erin, also Ire-land. The Gaelic or Irish name for Scotland Is Alba, which
sometimes stood for the whole of Britain.
2 The same schools in Ireland produced men of international fame in
widely different periods. Thus Moville produced Finnian and Columcille in
the sixth century and Marianus Scotus in the eleventh. Armagh sent forth
Benignus in the fifth, Gildas in the sixth, and Imar in the twelfth century.
Clonard produced the famous "Twelve Apostles" in the sixth and Aileran in
the seventh. Clonard produced Fintan and Moinenn in the sixth, Fursey and
Cummian in the seventh, and Cormac and others in the ninth. Clonmacnois
founded by Ciaran on Saturday, January 23, 544, produced Alithir in the
1
sixth, King Guaire
in the seventh, MacConcumba in the eighth, and Colgu,
Josephus Scotus, perhaps Sedulius Scotus and a host of others in the ninth.
Columbanus went from Bangor in the sixth, Dungal in the eighth and ninth,
and Malachy in the twelfth. And so with the other great seats of learning
in Ireland.
46