After the Roman Empire devolved into the Dark Ages, barbarians sacked and burned the cities of the civilized world. As the libraries, the temples and the churches burned, the collective history and the great scientific and mathematical advances of past civilizations went up in smoke.

Meanwhile, a Roman living in Britain named Patricius was captured and taken to Ireland. He escaped from slavery to become a priest. He returned to Ireland, bringing with him the word of God and the knowledge of the ancients. Thus, Ireland became the sanctuary for the thoughts and dreams of Western civilization.

Patricius founded a network of seminaries and libraries in Ireland that protected, preserved and advanced the knowledge that had been lost everywhere else. Patricius died long before Europe emerged from the Dark Ages. His legacy, however, lived on in the Irish intellectuals who became known after the Dark Ages ended.

These learned Irish–girded with the knowledge of the ancient world, bearing illuminated manuscripts written by hand, and with the intellectual fervor of scholars–went forth to spread the word of God and to plant the seeds of scholarship that later founded great universities in Paris, Oxford, Rome and Bologna.

Did you guess that Patricius was later to be known as Saint Patrick? Not all Irish are drunken louts in green hats wearing Kiss Me * I’m Irish buttons.

Eileen