How the Irish Saved Civilization: A Review
Thomas Cahill holds multiple bachelors’ degrees in classical literature and philosophy, as well as a master of fine arts degree in film and dramatic literature. He taught at Queens College, Fordham University and Seton Hall University and wrote for major publications including the London Times and Los Angeles Book Review. Before retiring to write full time he served as Director of Religious Publications at Doubleday books. How The Irish Saved Civilization is the first book in his Hinges of History series, in which he examines pivotal events in Western History.
Cahill’s narrative begins with a look at the fall of Rome and brief mention of the many theories of what led to the downfall of the great Empire, from Augustine’s City of God to Edward Gibbons’ History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire thirteen centuries later. To illustrate the Roman perspective on life before the fall, he examines the life and writings of the poet Ausonius through which he explores the social and political conditions that foreshadowed the demise of the Empire. He then turns to the life and writings of Augustine of Hippo to illustrate what was lost when Rome fell, the classical traditions that brought such huge advances in Western civilization, embodied in Augustine’s Confessions, in which he became the first to use the word ‘I’ in the modern sense and reflect personally upon the conditions of his life, and in the great literature that led him to write. From this discussion of Roman and Christian culture, Cahill moves on to the Irish isle with an examination of pre-Christian Irish culture, drawing on early Celtic epics to illustrate the sharp contrast between the static Irish civilization and the rapid advances of the Roman Empire. To tell the tale of the spread of Christianity to Ireland, Cahill focuses on one boy, Patricius, later to be known as Saint Patrick, and the combination of legend and fact that chronicle his life. The son of a middle class Roman citizen living in Britain in the time when the Empire began to contract and crumble, he first saw Ireland as a slave taken from his home in an Irish raid on the weakened outskirts of the Empire, and became a holy man during his captivity. Quoting from Patrick’s own writings along with Irish legend, Cahill focuses on how Patrick spread literacy along with Christianity to the people of Ireland. Cahill discusses the Irish conversion to Christianity as unique, for unlike the conversion of other European tribes, it was not accompanied by Romanization. Much of the body of the book focuses on the ways that Irish mysticism and Christianity intertwined to forge Irish Catholicism over the centuries following Patrick’s travels, and on the monastic tradition that spread beyond Ireland, carried by monks who saw leaving their homeland as a form of living martyrdom. Cahill relates the tales of several such monks, who founded monasteries on their travels and copied texts untroubled by the violence and chaos that affected much of the European continent. It is by preserving these texts and by spreading literacy and Christianity to the many who studied in their monasteries that Cahill asserts the Irish saved civilization.
How The Irish Saved Civilization was fairly well received by critics. It spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list, and has been translated into 11 different languages. Although some critics took note of the lack of solid evidence to support some of the narrative, the praise for Cahill’s writing style was universal. The April 1995 issue of Booklist praised Cahill’s work as “An utterly absorbing and entertaining chronicle of a virtually neglected episode in the annals of Western civilization.”
The narrative style of this book made it an easy read for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed the way the author used the life and works of historical figures to embody each era he discussed. The heavy reliance on ancient literature rather than lengthy explanations or analysis brought the character of each culture to life in a fascinating manner. This was an exceptionally effective way of describing the people of pre-Christian Ireland, whose legends and epics very clearly depict the nature of their culture. By focusing on two of the most notable Christian saints, Augustine and Patrick, Cahill showed the marked differences between Roman and Irish Christianity. The tone of the book takes on a somewhat rambling feel that joins with the material to recreate the Irish storytelling tradition. Though the sections of the book dealing with Saint Patrick and the conversion of Ireland were heavy on legend and conjecture in the absence of definitive fact, Cahill’s argument for the importance of the Irish contribution was well supported by the evidence left behind by the monks and the monasteries they founded. This book shed new light on the rebirth of literacy and literature in medieval Europe by explaining how some of the great classic works were preserved through the fall of Rome, and took an interesting approach to explaining the role of Saint Patrick in both Irish and Christian history. The way in which Ireland was converted to Christianity was particularly interesting in light of how much of history is filled with forced conversions at the hands of foreign conquerors.
