Early Irishry
PETER VANSITTART
The Quest of Three Abbots Brendan Lehane (John Murray 42s)
Saint Patrick R. P. C. Hanson (our 30s) Mr Lehane sub-jitles his book 'Pioneers in Ireland's Golden Age.' The general reader, to
whom it is addressed, may not readily identify this with She fourth and fifth centuries, Euro-
pean 'Dark Ages,' from which Ireland was to develop international importance. A consider- able trading centre even in pre-Celtic days, Druidic Ireland was spared both Roman Em- pire and, until the Vikings, barbarian invasion. Sophisticated in crafts, decoration, law and perhaps mystical speculation, the Irish accumu- lated one of the oldest literatures in Europe, despite the druids' unconcern with or hostility to general literacy.
They produced the first pocket books, their vernacular escaped tired classical imagery.
Their gifts of lyricism, satire, abuse sprang from a paradoxical national character: adven- turous, pedantic, liable to extremes of unruli- ness and asceticism, blatancy and subtlety, with
backslidings into -occidie, long established and not, as has sometimes been maintained, a mere
reaction to English oppression. Christianity fitted into a pattern of personal honour, hard- ship,-reward, renunciation and learning familiar in heroic verse, to which biblical and theologi- cal argument even added a claim that the Irish were the Chosen Race.
Christianity's gifts to Ireland are clear. Literacy, Roman skills0 tillage and diplomacy, a higher appeal to women, a purposeful after- life, the monastic coordination of the intellec- tual, emotional and physical activities. Self- governing, indifferent to the continental hier- archy, the Irish monasteries were minor uni- versities preserving pagan as well as Christian learning, unusual in an intolerant age. The out- come was expansionist. Brendan, a legendary Celtic Odysseus, suggests the expansion of the imagination; Columba was the efficient or- ganiser; Niman, Patrick, Aldan represent the expanding Church, together with the great Columbanus, inspirer of nearly a hundred con- tinental monasteries, whom the modern poli- tician, Robert Schumann, acclaimed as 'the patron saint of those who seek to construct a united Europe.'
Charlemagne's empire was to benefit from Irish learning, farming, controversy, which, Mr Lehane submits, made Chris- tianity at last appeal to the country folk. Retaining their nonconformity, the wanderers doggedly stuck to the ideals of earlier Chris- tianity against the more flexible, materialistic and ultimately successful Rome. In orthodox circles 'Irish' was a term of abuse. (A rule of Columbanus, 'Six strokes of the rod for the monk who giggles during holy office,' has an Irish ring.) Compared with the coeval Bene- dictines, such men were immoderate in their perfectionist vision, erratic ardours and im- mense travels.
Loosely centred round Brendan, Columba, Columbanus, Mr Lehane's book is an affec- tionate survey of the Irish achievement, with side-glances at continental monasticism and politics, written somewhat in the manner of the late Helen Waddell, and with digressions into tall story like the elaborate whirls, doodles and marginal whimsies in so much Irish art.
Also the occasional carelessness. 'How odd of God to choose the Jews' is not Belloc's work, though unquestionably his sentiments.
No carelessness attaches to Mr Hanson. For the smaller, more scholarly, public he supplies strictly applied research. It is an impressive study of the evidence, often conflicting, about post-Roman Britain, by no means as helpless as popular tradition once held, the growth of the Roman and Celtic churches, and the his- torical Patrick. He is a trenchant despoiler of sectarian tradition and learned error: see the tart references to the unfortunate Mr Newport • White.
Having disposed of the spurious, legen- dary and confused, he examines more primary sources, Patrick's own writings, and the con- - temporary debates, then builds a convincing outline of the saint's career and significance. His findings will be necessary for the serious student, who may accept the suggestion that it is almost true to say that Patrick 'is the first Brits personality in history whom the his- torian can know.'
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