A Canadian Family

“How the Irish Saved Civilization” by Thomas Cahill

If you’re not well acquainted with Ireland – I’d like you to try a little experiment.

Close your eyes for a moment.          Think about Ireland and the Irish.          What comes to mind?

Till recently, I would see shamrocks and leprauchans – St. Patrick’s Day in Montreal – terrorist explosions on nightly newscasts during the 60s/70s – the Book of Kells – the Potato famine – Lord of the Dance – the White House Kennedys. Well, this summer I brought this little history volume along on my canoe/fishing trip and it’s definitely expanded my views of Ireland and the Irish.

How the Irish Saved Civilization is the first in a series of books organized around Thomas Cahill’s notion of Hinges of History. He invites us to shift our focus away from wars and “narratives of human pain” and focus instead on the “moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance”.

This book really tells three stories. The first is the birth and spread of Western civilization from its Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman roots. The second  is about pre- and post-Christian Ireland and some core Irish beliefs and aesthetics that run through both cultures. And finally, the third is the story of howbarbarian hordes descended on what was left of the Roman Empire, smashing what was left of classical western civilization but leaving  Ireland untouched. Throughout the ensuing dark years Irish monks protected their sacred writings and continued their labour of copying and recopying the precious texts of Western and Irish civilization and then, when the time was right, these monks and nuns emerged out of Ireland and carried their precious gifts of the mind  back into mainland Europe. In Cahill’s own words:

“… the great gift-givers, arriving in the moment of crisis, provided for transition, for transformation, and even of transfiguration, leaving us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightul, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found”

*    *    *   *    *

How the Irish Saved Civilization:The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. Thomas Cahill. Doubleday, New York. ISBN 0-385-41849

Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture, 15th Edition

2nd Annual Small-leaved Shamrock Summer Reading Challenge

Small-leaved Shamrock

Related Link:

How The Irish Saved Civilization – a review by Donna Pointouski  of What’s Past Is Prologue

August 20, 2009 - Posted by Evelyn Yvonne Theriault | . | blog carnival, book review, Thomas Cahill