Ireland by Vincent McDonnell Read Free Book Online

Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, which is on an island in Lough Derg, County Donegal, and Downpatrick in County Down, where he is allegedly buried. Some historians claim that Patrick went to France and died and was buried there.
    Armagh is also closely associated with Patrick because he founded the most important Irish church there. It still remains the most important church in Ireland today. We don’t know exactly when Patrick died, but it is thought that he lived for thirty years after he came to Ireland and died on 17 March, which is now his feast day, in 462.
    There are many legends associated with Saint Patrick. One of the most famous is that he banished the snakes from Ireland. The legend claims that one snake refused to be banished so Patrick made a box and ordered the snake into it. The snake claimed that the box was too small and an argument ensued between the two. Patrick persuaded the snake to prove that the box was too small by slithering into it. Having tricked the snake, Patrick closed the box, trapping it inside. He then threw the box into the sea, into which he had already driven all the other snakes. We don’t really believe this legend; yet there are no snakes in Ireland today.
    What is true about Patrick is that he was one of the most important men ever to come to Ireland. Not only did he bring Christianity, but with that faith came writing and learning, and the start of what we call the Golden Age. While wars raged in Europe, and tribes called Angles and Saxons conquered England, Ireland became a land of ‘saints and scholars’.

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Monasteries and Missionaries
    B efore Saint Patrick came to Ireland, the only form of writing in the country was a simple Celtic script known as ogham. This consisted of groups of marks, like dashes, with each group representing a letter of the alphabet. With this system of writing, simple words like a person’s name could be cut on the edge of a stone. But with the coming of Saint Patrick and Christianity, Latin, the language of the Romans, came to Ireland. The oldest pieces of writing in Latin to survive from that time are two letters written by Saint Patrick himself.
    The coming of Saint Patrick utterly changed the way of life in Ireland over the next few hundred years. As Christianity spread throughout the country, a great many monasteries were founded. Some of the most important of these were at Clonard, County Meath; Clonfert, County Galway; Clonmacnoise, County Offaly; Durrow, County Laois; Glendalough, County Wicklow; and Derry, beside the River Foyle. At first, these monasteries were comprised of a wooden church along with accommodation for the monks. Later, these wooden buildings were replaced with stone buildings. There were also workshops and granaries and bakeries and kitchens and schools and rooms where monks wrote and copied manuscripts, and where they could study. There were also hospitals where the sick were cared for.
    The monks who lived in the monasteries were engaged in numerous tasks. They made beautiful religious objects in gold and silver, set with jewels. These were chalices and patens and crosses, which were used in celebrating Mass. They also made reliquaries, which are boxes to hold relics of saints, and high crosses from carved stone. Two of the most beautiful objects dating from this time are the Ardagh and Derrynaflan chalices.
    The monks also made elaborate boxes, called cumdachs, in which to store the books they wrote. Books were very important and valuable in those days, and were all written by hand. They were not written on paper but on vellum, which is made from the skins of animals, usually calves, sheep and goats. The inks were made from plants like saffron, turmeric and woad; from earth, like yellow ochre; and from charcoal or burned bones and even from insects. Urine and earwax were also used in making up the inks, which doesn’t sound very pleasant at all.
    These books, or to give them their correct title, manuscripts (because they were