http://www.irishcentral.com/topics/Gaelic+Order IrishCentral Gaelic Order en-us http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/the_keane_edge/the-irish-learned-tradition-was-first-written-in-the-trees-104439373.html http://www.irishcentral.com/story/ent/the_keane_edge/the-irish-learned-tradition-was-first-written-in-the-trees-104439373.html Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:25:13 PDT
The Irish have a learned tradition that is unique to Europe and which helped flip the continent from barbaric illiteracy in Dark Ages, to the illumination and bookishness that would become western civilization Important European universities began as Irish monasteries, built by literati that left Ireland with the education to teach the chaotic post-Roman world to read Old Irish books are tortured creatures, made from skinned calves, and often fated to the bonfires of Europe's philistine streak In the bonfires of conquerors the independent scholarly tradition of Ireland's proto-universities was almost destroyed, as with the round towers and sanctuaries along the Shannon READ MORE ]]>