Monastic Ireland Provides Cloud Storage for Western Intellectual Capital during Cultural Blackout

During a cultural outage, now known as the Dark Ages, monks in Ireland copied important works by Aristotle, Galen, and others, creating essential back-up copies, which were later downloaded back to the Continent and used as intellectual capital to launch the Renaissance.

That's one story (recounted with different terminology in Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization) of Ireland's contribution to the world at large.

There are many others, and of course, there's an ever-growing, superb canon of writing, and wonderful music.

It's a shame, then, that here in the U.S., for children especially, St. Patrick's Day means so much time wasted on anything having to do with leprechauns.

I don't mind people talking so much about leprechauns on St. Patrick's Day, as long as, when the time comes to talk about German culture, they lead off with a discussion of poltergeists. Or when it comes to talking about England, they start with duergars, rather than Shakespeare. Or when surveying New York culture in the 20th century, they skip over the architecture, Abstract Expressionism, the poets at the Tavern, jazz, and the Met, and focus instead on the fortune tellers at Coney Island.

Have I made myself clear?

Good. Let's all have a round of Smithwick's and continue.

Irish culture. Today, we celebrate it. Wear green, pick up a good book by a fine author like John McGahern or Anne Enright, and listen to some fine music, like Martin Hayes below.

And if you've got kids, skip the leprechaun nonsense and pick up The Island of Horses, which I'm reading now to our 7-year-old, and which is a fine tale.











Erin Go Bragh!

Irish pub photo by nicksarebi, some rights reserved