http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1801370

Early Christian Ireland

Celtic Ireland was never conquered by the Romans but was converted to Christianity by Roman missionaries just at the time when the barbarians were breaking through the Imperial frontiers. While the rest of western Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages by the fall of the Roman Empire, Ireland entered her Golden Age of literature, learning and art. This is the first book to deal with that remarkable early Christian culture as a whole. The story of Ireland's conversion by St. Patrick in the 5th century, of the process by which the country became literate and acquired culture and scholarship, and of the development of a complex art under the patronage of the most vigorous institution of the age- the Church- is told here. And then the decline of Irish culture, first under the onslaught of the Vikings and then as a result of the Norman invasion, is traced down to the completion of the process by the Elizabethan conquest of the 16th century. -- Publisher description

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