Above : Initial Letter “E”, Book Of Kells

One of the most distinguished and learned of Irish Archaeologists* has remarked that we must draw from foreign depositories the materials on which to rest the proofs that Ireland of old was really entitled to that literary eminence which natural feeling lays claim to. Nearly all our domestic evidences of advanced learning have been swept away and destroyed. Hence our real know­ledge of Irish teachers and scholars who migrated to the Continent, and became masters of foreign monasteries abroad, is derived from foreign chronicles, and their testimony is borne out by the evidence of the numerous Irish manuscripts and other relics of the period from the eighth to the tenth century occurring in libraries throughout Europe.

Irish manuscripts are at present to be found in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, in Turin and Naples, which are said to have been brought originally from Bobbio. Such Irish foundations as Bobbio were for many centuries fed from the monasteries in Ireland, and in the ninth century and afterwards books were often brought abroad from the Mother Country. We find that Dungal made donations of books to Bobbio, and that when an Irish bishop and his nephew visited the monas­tery of St. Gall on their return from Rome in 841, they decided to remain there till death, and be­queathed their books to the monastery. At Schaff-hausen there is a manuscript in perfect preserva­tion of Adamnan’s ‘ Life of St. Columba’ which was brought from the Irish foundation at Reichenau. Many Irish manuscripts were found in Bavaria, and as Dr. Reeves observes, they might he considered as a small instalment in discharge of the old debt that the country owed to Ireland for her missionary services. Vienna possesses manuscripts from Ratisbon, and a copy of the Epistles of St. Paul written by Marianus Scotus ” for his pilgrim brethren.” In Treves there are two Irish manuscripts brought from Honau. At Cambrai there is a Codex finely ornamented in the Celtic style, which contains canons of the Irish Council held in A.D. 684, and in the monastery of St. Autbert in that city is a * Life of St. Brigid’ that came from Longford. In the public library of Leyden there is a Priscian written by Dubthach about 838, a fragment of the New Testament is preserved in the University of Utrecht, and the Royal Library in Brussels contains the large col­lection of Irish manuscripts brought from Louvain. The attainments of the Scots were considered as astonishing for that age. They had, as Al.d’Arbois de Jubainviile has shown,* a good know­ledge of Greek, and they appear to have been the only people then in Western Europe who possessed this knowledge. They had Graeco - Latin Glossaries, Greek Grammars, and the books of the Bible in Greek accompanied by Latin translations. One of them, John Scotus Erigena, was a disciple of Plato, whose Timaeus he appears to have read in the original text, and he was the founder of a system of philosophy derived from the doctrines of the celebrated Greek philosopher. It was con­sidered good taste amongst the Irish scholars and the other learned men of this period to scatter Greek words through the Latin text which they composed, and this practice points to a certain acquaintance with the language. John Scotus Erigena went even further than this, and wrote verses entirely in Greek. A manuscript in the library of Laon, written by an Irish scribe between the years 850 and 900, contains two glossaries of the Greek and Latin languages, with occasional passages in the Irish language, and also a Greek Grammar. It is believed to have been included in the library of Charles the Bald.

They were also famed for their subtlety in argument and boldness in speculation. In these qualities they were distinguished from the Saxon scholars, who were invited to the Court of Charle­magne, by the Emperor acting on the advice of Alcuin. Cardinal Newman nas remarked that as Rome was the centre of authority in these ages, so Ireland was the native home of speculation. In this respect they were remarkably contrasted with the English, as they are now—” the Englishman was hard-working, plodding, bold, determined, persevering, obedient to law and precedent, and if he cultivated his mind, he was literary and classical rather than scientific, for literature in­volves in it the idea of prescription. On the other hand, in Ireland the intellect seems rather to have taken the line of science, and we have various in stances to show how fully this was recognised in these times, and with what success it was carried out. ‘ Philosopher’ is in these times almost the name for an Irish monk.” The monks of the two nations were distinct, and even antagonistic ia talent, and there are evidences of jealousies and rivalries—” the repugnance between the plain solid English temperament and the more adven­turous speculative genius of the Celt.” The Irish scholars were alluded to as ” Egyptians” on account of their leaning towards mysticism and Neo-Platonism, as we learn from a letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne in which he writes “Nescio quis subintroduxit Aegyptos tibi.”