Blending influences from afar

Today we think of Ireland as the island located on the north-western shores of Europe. During the early medieval period however, the country’s cultural borders were far less clearly defined, and although its inhabitants considered themselves as living at the ‘edge of the world’, they were anything but isolated from it.

With the gradual collapse of Roman Britain in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, small Irish settlements sprung up along the western seaboard of Scotland, south Wales and north-west Cornwall. Other Irishmen paid shorter visits to Britain, capturing Romano-British and bringing them back to Ireland as slaves.

The most famous of these was the Welshman Patrick, later St Patrick, who is credited with forming one of the earliest Christian communities in Ireland during the mid-fifth century.

^{Fig 1. St Patrick. Clonmacnoise cathedral, Co. Offaly, c. 1460 Photo: Rachel Moss.}

Other Christian preachers, such as Palladius, probably came from further afield, bringing with them the books and other objects necessary for Christian worship.

Schools established at some of the larger church settlements in Ireland became famed for their scholarship and attracted clerics and nobles from across Europe. According the late seventh-century historian, Bede,

‘the Irish welcomed them all gladly, gave them their daily food, and also provided them with books to read and instruction, without asking any payment’.

^{Fig 2. Map of Irish monastic foundations in Europe. © Liam de Paor.}

‘The Irish nation, with whom the custom of travelling into foreign parts has now become almost second nature’.

^{Fig 3. St Columbanus and St Gall on Lake Constance. St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 602, p. 33. cc}

Far from being an inward-looking, insular culture, the books and art created within the environment of the Irish church reflects a learned, global outlook.

The Book of Kells draws deeply from this well of learning, blending together influences from many different places in a uniquely Irish manner.