Is is seldom possible to say of the medievals that they *always* did one thing and *never* another; they were marvelously inconsistent.
Thomas CahillTag: culture middle-ages medival
If there are no books. There is no civilization.
Thomas CahillThe phrase "the violent bear it away" fascinated the 20th century Irish-American storyteller Flannery O'Connor, who used it as the title of one of her novels. O'Connor's surname connects her to an Irish royal family descended from Conchobor (pronounced "Connor"), the prehistoric king of Ulster who was foster father to Cuchulainn and "husband" of the unwilling Derdriu. In the western world, the antiquity of Irish lineages is exceeded only by that of the Jews.
Thomas CahillTag: irish geneaology
In becoming an Irishman, Patrick wedded his world to theirs, his faith to their life…Patrick found a way of swimming down to the depths of the Irish psyche and warming and transforming Irish imagination – making it more humane and more noble while keeping it Irish.” (161)
Thomas CahillTag: religion
We followed the rump of a misguiding woman. It is the usual thing for a herd led by a mare to be strayed and destroyed.
Thomas CahillThey understood, as few have understood before or since, how fleeting life is and how pointless to try to hold on to things or people. They pursued the wondrous deed, the heroic gesture: fighting, fucking, drinking, art - poetry for intense emotion, the music that accompanied the heroic drinking with which each day ended, bewitching ornament for one's person and possessions.
Thomas CahillThe Irish innovation was to make all confession a completely private affair between penitent and priest - and to make it as repeatable as necessary. (In fact, repetition was encouraged on the theory that, oh well, everyone pretty much sinned just about all the time.)
Thomas CahillI see a sweet country. I could rest my weapon there.
Thomas CahillWe will never make it under our own stem. Having made this connection, Augustine falls apart. What he describes at this point in the "Confessions" is a full-scale emotional breakdown.
Thomas CahillWherever they went the Irish brought with them their books, many unseen in Europe for centuries and tied to their waists as signs of triumph, just as Irish heroes had once tied to their waists their enemies' heads. Where they went they brought their love of learning and their skills in bookmaking. In the bays and valleys of their exile, they reestablished literacy and breathed new life into the exhausted literary culture of Europe.
And that is how the Irish saved civilization.
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