Above: Shots of scenic view and attractions in Ireland

Ireland came to be known as ‘ The Island of Saints and Scholars’ and the upright deeds which Irishmen achieved for religion and learning securely vindicates Ireland’s claim to this splen­did title. The energy and enthusiasm which were awakened all over the country by the proclamation of the Gospel could not be contained within the limits of Ireland itself.

• Montalembert notes as one of the most striking characteristics of the Irish monks is their passion for pilgrimage and preaching, and the domineering necessity which seemed to urge them to spread themselves over Western Europe, seeking and carrying knowledge and faith afar, and of penetrating into the most distant regions, to watch and combat against paganism.

• St. Bernard speaks of the multitude of saintly men who descended from Ireland on the Continent like an overflowing stream. They threw themselves with the fiery enthusiasm of their race into the struggle with the mass of heathenism that was intimidating the existence of the Christian world.

• So magnificent was their success, and so prominent a part did they play in the re-establishment of the faith amongst foreign nations, that, in the strik­ing words of John Richard Green, it seemed for a time as if the world’s history was to be changed, and as if Celtic, and not Latin Christianity, was to mold the destinies of the churches of the West.

• Another historian writes that from Iceland to the Danube and the Appenines, among Frank or Burgundian or Lombard, the Irish vigor ap­peared invincible and inexhaustible.