How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

The pre-Christian Irish prose epic Tain Bo Cuailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley) was recorded in the eighth century, but the tale is probably much older, reflecting “a rough, strange [pagan] world” that is “both simple and full of barbarian splendor” and different from classical Greco-Roman literature (76). Though the epic’s characters are uncivilized, they exhibit a distinct Irish confidence.

The Irish are Celtic in ethnicity. Celtic peoples settled in ancient Iberia, Gaul, and Britain. When the Germanic Angles and Saxons arrived in Great Britain, they pushed the Celts into Wales and Cornwall. Around 350 BCE, the Celts arrived in Ireland. Most came from Iberia, while others arrived from Britain. In fact, the Irish language is most closely related to that of the Iberian Celts.

The Irish creation myth is pagan in origin, grounded in historical information, and includes later Christian influences. The sons of Mil arrive in Ireland after a great flood in Iberia. The Celts displace the indigenous tribe called Tuatha De Danaan, who morph into mythological creatures, including the leprechauns and fairies of later Irish legends. Literature shows that Ireland was “an illiterate, aristocratic, seminomadic, Iron Age warrior culture […]” (81). This society existed in isolation from the rest of Europe, with Celtic culture surviving unchanged when Rome fell.

A third-century BCE Greek sculpture, Dying Gaul, provides a glimpse into what this Celtic warrior culture was like. The Gaul is barely clothed and leans upright as he takes his final breaths:

The Romans, in their first encounters with these exposed, insane warriors, were shocked and frightened. Not only were the men naked, they were howling and, it seemed, possessed by demons, so outrageous were their strength and verve […] The Irish heroes were aware that they became possessed when confronted by the enemy and that their appearances could alter considerably, and they called this phenomenon the ‘warp-spasm’ (82).

The Tain contains literary evidence for this tradition. The powerful woman Medb, who sends her warriors on a cattle raid, dominates the Tain, unlike the women in Greco-Roman epics. No woman stands on the battlefield in classical literature the way that Medb does in the Tain, and she is not unique in Irish literature. Rather, the voices of empowered women appear throughout Irish literature into the modern era. This literature emphasizes values that are important to the Irish, including generosity, courage, and faithful friendship. Patricius (Patrick) entered such a world when he came to Ireland as an enslaved shepherd.