Celtic Ireland S.
2 total works
Though the description Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum was not actually written down until the sixteenth century, Ireland's fame as the island of saints and scholars had then been established for more than six hundred years. That reputation was won mainly in what might otherwise have really been the Dark Ages. The Christian faith which had collapsed over most of Europe with the decline and fall of the western Roman empire still survived on the rocky fringes of the Atlantic seaboard. The 'pilgrims for Christ' as these Irish voyagers called themselves, spent the rest of their lives relighting a candle in the darkness and in spite of terrible deprivations, not least homesickness, re-establishing not only Christianity but the glories of classical learning which had fallen into their safe keeping. This book lists both saints and scholars (often in the same personality), their foundations and the works that made the period Ireland's truly golden age.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852), the pocket-sized tenor who was the darling of English aristocratic drawing rooms, as he sang 'the wild songs of his dear native plains', was a true patriot. A gifted minor poet, whose first published work was a version of the erotic odes of the Greek poet Anacreon, he managed to create lyrics that, matched to traditional Irish airs, made his name famous throughout the English-speaking world even in his own lifetime. In spite of adulation from society hostesses he never forgot his country, with its present distresses and former greatness. He taught the English that the despised Irish peasants came trailing clouds of glory and would one day have to be reckoned with. It is impossible that the Irish Melodies should ever be forgotten, as married so perfectly to their airs they recreate the beginnings of modern nationalism. And just as the words are bereft without the tune so even a compact life of Ireland's minstrel boy requires as accompaniment a selection of his deathless lyrics.