HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION, by Thomas Cahill, Non-fiction

The author of this book is THOMAS Cahill, the scholar, not TIM Cahill, the humorous travel writer. The work would be much livelier if they had collaborated, but it's a great book anyway. Thomas Cahill postulates that Irish monks were spared the slaughter of the rest of the Roman empire because they lived in remote islands the barbarians didn't want. In these quiet and isolated locales, they continued the monastery tradition of creating wondrous illuminated manuscripts. Cahill discovered that, surprisingly, they not only copied holy works, but also pagan and secular ones. They recreated Roman and Greek writings, including plays, then spread these lost works back through medieval Europe hundreds of years later, when it was safe for Irish missionary monks to travel again. The re-emergence of these classics sparked the interests of a continent newly interested in enrichment and intellectual challenges.

Since it was St. Patrick who brought Christianity to Ireland, he's one of the heroes who kept our Western world from collapsing. Think about this on March 17 as you drink green beer and march in parades.