385. Saint Patrick: Slave, Rebel, & Ireland’s Patron Saint (Ep 3)

21:28Bury, the great John Bagnall Bury, who was Regis Professor of History in Cambridge before he passed away in 1927. he wrote a famous book on St. Patrick, which was the standard account of Patrick for many years, called The Life of St. Patrick and His Place in History. And he wrote that as a historian of the later Roman Empire, of late antiquity. He didn't write it as a history of Ireland. He wrote it as the last chapter in the history of the Roman Empire. And he said Patrick has a place in history because Patrick is the only citizen of the Roman Empire who was taken captive, was taken out of the empire, spent some time amongst the barbarians, escaped from captivity, came back and wrote about his experiences.

22:08And that's what we have in the confession.

22:10William Dalrymple:So, I mean, what does he say about it? How bad was it for him? I mean, just, you know, describe what he says. Oh, he says he was on the point of death several times. He's very remarkable. And in fact, it gives us an interesting insight into what you were asking about previously, the organisation of Irish society, because he says at one stage he was engaged in missionary activity. Presumably he and his colleagues were traveling around the country and they were taken prisoner. And he thought they were on the point of death, that they were all going to be put to the sword. But he said he had taken precautions because he had bought insurance, so to speak, we would say.

22:41He had bought himself physical protection for the possibility that something like this might happen. And that saved him. It literally saved his life. He and his co-missionaries were saved from being butchered. And we know that others, the letter to the soldiers of Carotagas, they were less squeamish. They did actually kill some of Patrick's converts, and made off with others and took them into captivity. And who are the soldiers of Carotacus? And who is Carotacus? Oh, Carotacus, there is a$64 ,000 question now. We think he might have been a king of Strathclyde. He mentioned in the Book of Armagh.

23:15A Briton, yes, he would have been a Briton. And Patrick is irate for that reason, because Britons should be good Romans, and good Romans should be good Christians. And what are Christians doing, massacring newly converted members of the church. So he has an axe to grind and he expels or he excommunicates Carotacus for that reason. But when I say the text is manipulated or the text has been doctored, two things are relevant from that point of view, Anita. In the case of the Confession, we are very lucky that there are other copies of the Confession elsewhere in other countries. The Book of Armagh should be the golden version of it.

23:49It's their official version. But we have discovered, because there are other copies on the continent, which we know must have left the country in the 7th century, they have a slightly different text. These are in Irish monasteries like St. Gallo or Bobbio? Lots of them. Lots of them. If you think of Fursa and Killian and all these people on the continent, the continental mission.

24:08William Dalrymple:Rather than where they are, I'm desperate to know what the differences are. So, okay, where are the discrepancies? The differences are all those points in the Confession where Patrick reveals himself to be weak. You know, Patrick in the biographies is an all-conquering Clint Eastwood type, druid-smashing, gun-toting, all-destroying, kick-ass convert. Snake-charming kick-ass. Everything. Druids had no chance against Patrick in the biographies. But in fact, if you think of the soldiers of Carotacus, they did what they did. Patrick cursed them, and they just laughed at him. He wrote a letter to Carotacus, and they all fell around laughing at the letter.

24:46And then he wrote the subsequent letter, which is the one that has come down to us. So they said, oh, Pures, you know, who the hell do you think you are? We'll do what we like. Thank you very much. And all of this is revealed in the Confessio. And Patrick reveals that there's nothing he can do about this. And the guys in our mind say, oh, we can't do this. No, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't going to work. It makes him look weak. Exactly. We can't do this. Ah, interesting. They cut out all those passages. And they're all there in the Continental copies, luckily for us.

25:11William Dalrymple:They basically inject him with steroids to make him look tougher. Oh, how interesting. Yeah, they have faked him. They've done an AI job on Patrick and turned him into a superhero. Yeah, they have. A Marvel superhero. Super Saint Patrick. That's what he is. Oh, yeah. But the stories that are in the other versions, the confrontation with the druids, the blinding. All made up. You don't go for any of it? Not at all. You're very sceptical. I am very sceptical, yes. Well, I mean, you know, don't just throw away the blinding, because if Armagh wanted us to know these stories, we should know these stories.

25:42William Dalrymple:What about the blinding? What does that particular version tell us about Clint Eastwood, St. Patrick? He strides around Ireland and it's like a Clint Eastwood movie. The Druids sort of appear out of the saloon and they stand there in the street and they do their various miracles. And in the end, the Druids are just swept up into the air and drop down on their heads on the ground and smash that way. disappear. Caroticus, actually, in the 7th century biography that's in the Book of Armagh, is actually turned into a fox. Oh. Into a fox? You were asked to believe that he is turned into a fox and he ran away, never to be heard again.

26:20Now, if you believe that, you believe anything. Now, when I say the manipulation, the other interesting point about manipulating the sources is that the folks in Armagh did have these documents. It's quite clear. They did have their copy, call it the original copy or not, they had a copy of the Confessio, the long letter, and they had a copy of the letter to the soldiers of Carotacus. But there's no copy of the letter in the Book of Armagh, the letter to the soldiers of Carotacus. Why? Because it shows Patrick up in a very bad light. They cannot have this.

26:47William Dalrymple:Not even in a bad light, just in a human light. You know, the man's been sort of set upon by brigands, you know. They're not interested in Patrick the human. They're interested in Patrick the gunslinger. Yeah. This is what you're used to in Irish saga, Irish myth, Irish storytelling. It's heroes. It's heroes. Patrick can do things, but he can't do all that that's cracked up. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back after the break and talk about the change that came undoubtedly with Patrick. And as you say, maybe, you know, the groundwork was laid by others before. But let's talk about how, after the break, Patrick changed Ireland.

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29:39William Dalrymple:Welcome back. So, Davi, we left everybody sort of imagining what Ireland wanted its Patrick to look like, you know, or what is now Northern Ireland wanted its Patrick to look like, you know, sort of muscly gunslinger. Let's park that for a second and just talk about actually what early Irish Christianity looked like, because there was a template, you know, the Roman church. So did they do things the Roman way in Ireland? Yes, there's been a tendency, I suppose, in the Romantic period or wherever you want to describe it, to argue that the Irish church was very different, that the Irish were different in everything, but particularly in the church and the organization in the church.

30:15It has to be emphasized. It can't be emphasized enough that they did not differ in any way in doctrinal or theological terms. There's nothing about early Irish Christianity that anybody could find offensive. There is a whiff, but in terms of Christianity, the other idea that you have frequently in the literature is that the Irish church was monastic, despite contrast with the rest of Western Christendom, which was Episcopal. The church was organized, you know, with a hierarchy and at the top you have your bishops and then everything is organized territorially in terms of diocese. It is the case that in the Irish church from the sixth century on, monasteries and the monastic organization, that's to say a monastery that has affiliate monasteries attached to it, branch offices, if you want to call it that, that these are spread all over the country.

31:00And in fact, the best example of all that we have is Iona, the famous monastery of Iona, founded in 563 by Columba, Columbkila as we call them, which is not in Ireland at all. And yet it runs an entire network of subsidiary churches in Britain, in Scotland, in Ireland from Iona. And that's because Iona was organized in a particular way and Columba was the head man. And in fact, the Venerable Bede remarks specifically on the fact that Iona was organized differently, that this was different from what everybody else had. Now, you go back to Patrick, given that Patrick, whenever he came to Ireland, must have come from Roman Britain, the organization of the church in Roman Britain cannot have been different from the organization anywhere else in the Western continent.

31:42So the early church in Ireland must have been run by bishops. The difficulty is that if you have 150 tuar, as they're called, small kingdoms, petty kingdoms, each one with a king of their own, and each one claiming a bishop of their own, according to early Irish law, you don't qualify in law as a kingdom unless you have a king, and a bishop. And therefore, to follow that logic, you would have 150 bishops. And all of a sudden, people in Western Europe would say, hang on a minute, now we have one bishop, you know, in Visigothic Spain, and we have one bishop in Frankish, Merovingian Gaul, and so on.

32:17How could you have 150?

32:19William Dalrymple:Yeah. So it's a good question. So you have little sort of mini-bishops, so to speak. And there is no doubt, it's a mistake to say that the church becomes entirely monastic. You cannot have that. There must have been bishops, and we know there are bishops still functioning in the Irish Church, because you have to have a bishop for sacramental purposes. But there's no question that if you look at Columba, who is far and away the most important man in the Irish Church in the sixth century until he dies in 597, there are others like him, a whole rake of them. They all happen to be in charge of monastic peruchiae, as they are called.

32:52William Dalrymple:Okay, so these heads of the monastic orders. I mean, Columba is the one who eclipses everybody else. But I'm imagining men of enormous charisma and power. I mean, were they powerful, these head monks? Yes, they were. I think they were, yes, for two reasons. In almost every case, they derive from powerful political families, as indeed bishops do on the continent and in Britain. They're all related to each other. All these hierarchies, secular and ecclesiastical, they're all very closely intertwined. And Ireland is no different. So you can be sure that someone like Columba is well got. And we know that Columbo was, in fact, a nephew of a high king of Ireland.

33:30His family was very well got in political terms. And the same applies to all the big names that we have in relation to all the other monastic peruchia. So they are all big noises. And you can tell, for example, the best known of all, he's not in Ireland at all, but the one that your listeners or readers or whatever would be most familiar with would be Columbanus, the man who heads to the continent and who heads up in Barbio in the north of Italy and so on, and who does battle with the Pope, no less. You know, we have a letter from Colin Bannis written to Gregory the Great in 600 saying, what are you doing?

34:01You're all wrong about Easter. You're all wrong about this. You're all wrong about that. We Irish have sorted this out years ago. What's this nonsense you're going on with? So these guys are used to mixing it with important people. You know, there's a certain degree, obviously, of deference, but not apology. So these guys are well connected. But as I say, there are bishops still. Bishops still have a sacramental function. You cannot ordain a priest. unless you have a bishop. It's as simple as that. So if you want to have priests, you have to have bishops. The diocese still exists. The diocese tend to be territorial.

34:31That's to say associated with tribes or however you want to describe them, population groups. And they are still there. It's a parallel system, if you like. But it is the case, and you mentioned Anita, charisma. There's no question. If you read Columban, say, or if you read about Columban, or any of these people, these guys have charisma coming out their ears. These guys really are important people and people listen to them. So what they say is important. There is some evidence that there is a difference of origin in particularly the monastic movement. We'll come back to this again later, but just to raise the flag here.

35:05When you go again around the National Museum, you see all these papyri out of Irish bogs, specifically out of Egypt. And you have those images of St. Paul and Antony, the Desert Fathers, far more emphasized in the Irish church than you do, say, in Gaul or Northern Italy. That's interesting. And there is a theory that there is a route of transmission from Egypt via Visigothic Spain and that you can, you know, you're shaking your head. Just let me finish this before you destroy it. I'm trying to hold myself. The way that the Psalms are sung, the specific use of the Psalms, which is in the Visigothic church, which ends up in Ireland.

35:44You don't buy any of that. No, no. He does not.

35:46William Dalrymple:Look at his face. All this nonsense about the Coptic church and the influence of the Coptic church, it's all hocus-pocus, I'm afraid. There's no evidence at all. There's the church out of Ireland. There's a whole variety of texts that say this church, Puri Egyptiani, and this sort of thing, the children of Egypt. Yeah, so the Puri Egyptiani are Alcuin's carnage. They have to do with a particular Easter practice that he doesn't approve of, which had come out of Alexandria in Egypt. It's nothing to do with the Coptic church. It's a totally different thing altogether. So how do you account for the images of St.

36:18Paul and Antony? Well, they've read their biographies. Those are the samples. Those are the templates that every Irish writer who's doing a biography of a saint has at his left elbow. These are the standard ways you write a biography of, in this case, the Desert Fathers. They all know about Paul and Antony. That's why they're there on the High Crosses. You're perfectly correct. but that's not because they have either been to the desert or people have come from the desert to teach them about Christianity. It's not true. There are occasional similarities, if you like, like the decorations say in the Book of Doro.

36:53There's a famous carpet page in the Book of Doro that looks very like something Coptic. But, you know, you have to allow for ethnogenesis or whatever is the term that the archaeologists use, that you can have two things popping up in different parts of the world at the same time. But no, a Coptic Irish church, no, sorry. No, listen, I'm with you.

37:10William Dalrymple:I'm not going to argue with you about any of this. Oh, really? Why bother? Why bother? I tell you what, because when I went to St. Paul's monastery, which is where St. Paul is from, on the Red Sea, there is an icon there. It's actually a late icon, it's 18th century, but it has the iconography of St. Paul and Antony in a cave. And they've both got their hands out and they've got a disc of the host between them that they're sharing. And it is identical to some of the Pictish, particularly one across a place called Fowlus Wester. But it's part of this chain that you get at Nigg and on the high crosses.

37:44There is an iconographical link, definitely, with Coptic art. I mean, you're not necessarily getting it Coptic monks turning up in Ireland, but you're definitely getting material from the Church of Egypt making its way. And you can go to the National Museum of Ireland and see these papyri. It's not Irish papyruses. No, no, there's no Irish papyri. Although that story was ruined. I used to tell my students when we were studying manuscripts, the one thing you could be certain of, and everybody was agreed on, that the Irish never used papyrus. They always used vellum and so on. And that was true until the famous Fadden Moore Salter was dug up out of the bog there back in 2006 or something like that.

38:22And DNA analysis showed up traces of papyrus in the satchel that was also found alongside the salter. Now, that upset the Catholic. Take that, Anita.

38:33William Dalrymple:I sat up in my chair, William. Yeah. There's no evidence at all of the Irish having used papyri on the basis of that evidence. Yeah, but they had it in their satchel. Hang on a minute. They had it in their satchel. There are traces of it that you and I can't see. We don't know what was in the satchel. But there's a whole binding in the National Museum. No, there's not. Okay, all right. Let's not fall out. I'm going to ask a very simple and straightforward question, because we've got plenty we can fall out of over in a minute. But can I ask you this? When exactly was Patrick made a saint? And do we know a little bit about the circumstances around that?

39:13That's a hard one. I should have studied to answer that question. I'm not sure that Patrick ever was actually officially made a saint. I mean, we have thousands of saints in Ireland. There's a dictionary of saints here that I'm looking at. There's about a thousand pages of it and, well, almost a thousand saints. So they're saints to us, but not to Rome, if you know what I mean. They haven't been canonized in that sense. And I don't think Patrick ever was canonized officially, strictly speaking.

39:37William Dalrymple:Oh, that's just blown my mind. Okay. So, right, I'm going to hit you with some more saints then because I have a favorite. Okay, St. Bridget. I am really quite partial to St. Bridget. Now, for those who don't know, I mean, she's, you know, first of all, meant to be born around, and you're going to tell me off about dates again, I can feel it, but, you know, sort of 451, we're thinking 80. Funnily enough, now, the most recent study has come up with the idea that the dates that you get on our annals, as they're called, our proto-chronicles, that they're probably correct. Yeah, I think she's supposed to have died in 526.

40:12William Dalrymple:Did you get that, Willie? I got a date right. You know, you got it right. Top girl star, head girl. There is an argument. I mean, did she meet Patrick? Did she know Patrick? You know, did they know each other? All this kind of stuff. Don't spoil it. I mean, I want to know. Why is she special? For those who don't grow up. Yeah, tell the story. It's a great story. Well, she is a woman, you know. It's a very male-oriented society, obviously. That's why I love her. Yeah, okay. And there are interesting things said about her, and she seems to be in charge of a church in Kildare in the sort of south midlands of the country.

40:42She appears to have authority over a bishop, which is one of the reasons. In fact, she appears to have been made a bishop by Bishop Conley. Now, the story is that he had too much to drink and he had a fit at the staggers and he made her a bishop when he shouldn't have done. But the fact is that, you know, they're trying to get around the problem that here is somebody who is a head of a monastic house, in this case a religious house of nuns, apparently having authority over a bishop, which shouldn't happen.

41:09William Dalrymple:Okay, but you're living out the foxy gates. I mean, if he did do it after, you know, he had a lot to drink. I mean, it's possible because they said St. Bridget was able to reproduce, you know, sort of food and beer and ale. She could change water into beer. She was the kind of girl you had for it. Well, I mean, at a party, you know, she's useful. but also, you know, that she has a sunbeam for a cloak. You know, there's all sorts of wonderful things. This impresses you, huh? I mean, if your girlfriend hung her coat on a sunbeam, you'd be impressed. I'd love it. And I would ask where she'd ordered it.

41:43It's highly unlikely. The sun almost never shines in Ireland, as you know. Well, no, there is that.

41:48William Dalrymple:Maybe they lost it with the cloak, when they misplaced the cloak. But with Bridget, I suppose what I'm interested most in is that these kind of powers, you know, sort of being able to do these miracles, to me, sounds really druidic. You know, it's more druidic than it is. Oh, dear. Well, I mean, OK, I put it this way. Oh, no, you've lost your gold star now, Anita. I know, back to the bottom of the class. There is an argument. Again, it's an ongoing argument. I'm not sure that there can be a resolution to it. But there is this argument that Bridget, as we know her, the Christian saint, the head of the monastic, our nunnery house in Kildare, that she is a Christianization of a pre-Christian deity.

42:26And we do know that there is somebody called Brigh, a sort of threefold god, or goddess rather, who's mentioned in early sources as being perhaps one of the few remnants of pre-Christian religion. And there may be a sort of, you know, cleaning up, however you want to describe it. One of the things said about the Irish, generally speaking in terms of their Christianity, is that they didn't do a clean sweep of everything that was there before them, that they tended to absorb and assimilate those aspects of the earlier society and make them part and parcel of Christianity. So that, for example, still in modern Ireland, we have the concept of holy wells.

43:03And you have a bush growing by the holy well, and people come along and do their pilgrimages, and they hang rosary beads and various things like that. And people say, oh, this is pure pagan. This is pure pre-Christian and so on. This is a thousand years old. Now, it may or may not be, but there seems to be something all right in Kildare. Kildare is unusual, all right, because Bridget does seem to be a genuine historian. Bridget, we talk about. Although, in fact, the lives of Bridget, what I call the biographies of Bridget, are worthless. Absolutely. From a biographical point of view, they're complete garbage.

43:31They're worse even than the Patrick lives, and that's saying something. So we're reliant on very little information, but we have enough to be able to say with a certain degree of confidence that she does seem to have existed. She does seem to have been important. And Kildare is a very important religious house for a long time, down into the 12th century and beyond. And the question does arise, how can this be if the person in charge is a woman? Now, there is the belief that the Irish invented the idea of the dual foundation. In other words, a foundation of men and of women, of monks and of nuns.

44:04And there's a certain element of that in England in the 7th century, arguably. Yes, exactly. And a few others as well. Arguably taken over from Irish examples, we can't prove it. The same applies on the continent in one or two cases. So it's possible. But you can bet your, well, I was going to say you can bet your bottom dollar that somebody like Bridget would have been well-connected. But in fact, the tribe that she comes from, the population group, is rather obscure by comparison with the others that we know about. Now, this may well be the case or be due to the fact that her tribe was actually a big, important population group, but that they simply went into decline.

44:38And by the time we come across her in the sixth century, they're not as important as they used to be. But the fact that she is there and that there is so much interest in her, as I said, there's nothing worthwhile. We only know her and her father. That's it from biographical evidence. And we have three lives, more than three lives. So they're utterly worthless. They're fantastic in terms of all the great stories you describe, hanging her coat on a sunbeam and all this kind of stuff, feeding people with nothing. But these are all just, you know, miracle stories because it's expected of a great Irish saint that he or she can perform miracles.

45:10It's as simple as that. Davi, one example where you do have the old world of the pre-Christian tribal Celtic world producing extraordinary fusion and mixture with the new Christian world and these ideas coming in from the continent is, of course, in art. and one of the great glories of this period is this astonishing new world where all these different influences, a little bit of Roman, a little bit of Latin, a little bit of gospel books turning up from Rome, produce and give us a little sketch of the high crosses and particularly the first of the books, Durrow. Durrow is pretty intimately connected with Kells.

45:51Durrow is supposed to have been a model for Kells. In fact, the book of Kells is probably the book best known that everybody knows and has heard about. but one of the most famous books of the Middle Ages. And it's still an extraordinary thing. And anybody who has seen it comes away wondering how on earth did they do it? You know, Géraldus Cambrances, the infamous 12th century Norman historian of the conquest of Ireland, talked about it being the work of angels. And I don't know whether you believe in angels, but you can believe in angels when you look at some of the decorated pages in Kells. Now, Kells is probably the high point of achievement.

46:23Doro is interesting in many ways. It's the earliest gospel book that we know of that is illustrated, apparently, for the purpose of illustration. That's to say, just for decoration. I mean, there is illustration in religious books and so on. And some of the figures are like jewellery, aren't they? They're like a sort of clasp. They are. And in fact, you mentioned the Pictish influence. Some of the representations of the evangelist symbols are straight out of Pictish art, you know, stone art of the calf or whatever the case may be. it's straight off a Pictish stone, which is nothing surprising because if you believe, as many people do, that the Book of Dourough may be originated in the Columban Peruchia, let's say is associated with Columba or Columbkila, and given that the headquarters is there on Iona, not a million miles away from Pictland, there's absolutely no reason why the community of Iona, the community of Dourough, or the community of wherever it is, would have had Picts in them.

47:14And they say, look, this is how we do it, where we come from, and they show the Irish how to do it, and it's as simple as that, yeah.

47:19William Dalrymple:Well, I mean, we're an audio format, but you can see our faces if you're watching on YouTube. Hello. But I mean, if you're not, I mean, I'd really urge you to go and have a look at both the book of Kells and the book of Dara because they are beautiful. I mean, the colors, the detail, they are astonishing. As you say, you know, people sort of look at them now and go, how on earth did they do that? Can I invite you to punch my co-host in the head? Because he's been trying to suggest to me that the Book of Cows... No, don't even go there. Scottish. No, no, not Scottish. Pictish. There's a new book came out.

47:57I forget the name of the author. William must know the author. I've got it here. I'm bristling actually my computer on it. Victoria Whitworth. That's it. Yes, I have the book. It's actually a very good book. Yes, very well done, actually. I don't believe the argument that it was done in Port Mahomak, that wonderful site in Port Mahomac. No, I don't believe it. Well, they found Wellam, big mate. Well, yes, so what? They found lots of things in Whitby, but it doesn't bring the book of Kells to Whitby.

48:22William Dalrymple:Okay, well, all right, so fine. I feel like you've dealt with it really well. Can I ask... One thing I should point out, though, before you move on, Anita, and I think it's easy to forget, particularly for our audience who might not be so familiar with Irish things, is that the Irish do appear to be the first people to introduce decoration into gospel books, particularly, not exclusively, but gospel books particularly for the sake of decoration. They produce, you know, carpet pages that I mentioned before, which means a page of decoration that looks like a carpet. That's why it's called a carpet page.

48:52And there's no text at all, no written text whatsoever. So you're... Often utterly beautiful. And you're invited to draw conclusions from the imagery, the decoration and so on, whether it's Christian or whatever the case may be. And then by the time you come to Kells, it's just otherworldly. I've seen Kells, I don't know how many times, and I'm all the more mystified every time I see it. How was it done?

49:13William Dalrymple:It is one of those things, though, isn't it? Because every time you look at it, it's better than the way you remembered it or imagined it. I've got a question specifically about Patrick. At what point does he become synonymous with Ireland and Irish identity, you know, to the point where, you know, you have St Paddy's Day celebrations all over the world, you know, it's arguably bigger in New York than even in Ireland? I think it's already there in 7th century. As I say, the people who brought the Patrick texts to the continent also brought the Patrick legend. And we know, we can demonstrate there's a cult of Patrick.

49:45Obviously, there's one in Ireland, because Patrick is mentioned in several sources, that don't have anything to do with Armagh, in fact, in the 7th century. So clearly the name was in circulation, and he was held in high esteem. But also that cult, or whatever version of it, was brought to the continent. And you have, for example, in Peron, Peronus Catorum in Picardy, reference to a 7th century inscription on a church, which is a sort of metrical biography of Patrick. And it's assumed that everybody will know what this is all about. In Picardy. In Picardy, yeah. Perona Scatorum. In fact, it's so Irish, it's so associated with the Irish that it requires the Latin name Perona Scatorum.

50:21Scottish is the medieval word for Irish, Scottish and Scotty and so on. So Perona Scatorum is Perona of the Irish. Toby, we've hinted now at this continental mission, which is where we'd like to take this now, because just give us a very brief sketch of this astonishing renaissance of learning, or not even renaissance, this birth of learning, this birth of literate, scholarly, academic, wonderfully artistic life that blossoms inside these monasteries and which is then exported to the continent. You mentioned Bobbio, which is near, on the way to Venice. There's other Irish monasteries, It's a place like St.

51:03Gael in Switzerland. Yeah, there's a whole string of them all across the continent. For people that don't know this story, give us a little sketch. It's interesting because the Irish are associated with missionary activity on the continent. And it begins very early on. Columbanus, I mentioned, and whom you mentioned in relation to Barbio and so on, left Ireland sometime in the 580s or 590s, eventually ended up in Barbio, dying in 615. But he's one of the first of many. There's a steady stream. So many, in fact, that some continentals complain about the number. The tribes, the hordes of Irish who are showing up on the continent, maybe because they're all asking for B &B and things like that.

51:37Some of them were begging and some of them were, you know, they had nothing like Oscar Wilde. They had nothing to declare, but they're genius, you know. But it is true that already before they left, there's an absolutely astonishing degree of learning and literature in Ireland. Both, interestingly enough, both in the Latin language, which you would expect from a Christian church in the western part of the world at any rate, but also in the Irish language. The Irish start writing their own language very early, and we have really sophisticated compositions, both in prose and in poetry, already by 600, which implies, given the degree of sophistication also in the Latin productions, which implies a continuity from the time of Patrick.

52:15It used to be thought that there was a break, that there was a gap, that there was a chasm somewhere, probably in the mid-6th century because of the Justinian plague, which caused great havoc all across Western Europe, but also in Britain and Ireland. Huge loss of life and abandonment of monastic and religious houses and dereliction and all that kind of thing. But there does seem to be a degree of continuity which kept these traditions going so that by the time the Irish arrive on the continent, for example, it's been pointed out by a Danish scholar, a modern Danish scholar, that Columbanus in the letter that he wrote to Pope Gregory I, now think of Papa Tutti Tutti Capi, the man at the head of the church.

52:53here is this bumptious little Irish man writing a letter to him in Latin, which according to Dag Norberg, Columbanus' Latin is better than the Pope's. He writes a better class of Latin. Now, you might say that happens often or always where people acquire language as a second language. You have a better grasp of grammar because you have to. You're learning how the language works and functions, and it's different from the language you're brought up with. But the fact is, Columbanus and all the Irish write really first-class Latin. Now, we would love to know how they did that, how they taught it, how they taught it so effectively.

53:28It seems to be like Oxford and Cambridge in the 19th century, where Greek and Latin seems to have been taught to an exceptionally high degree. But whatever means they had, the Irish are synonymous with learning by the time they get to the continent. And any time an Irishman knocks on the door, he's invited into the parlor to give a lecture on some sophisticated theological subject or grammatical subject or artistic subject or whatever the case may be, because it's assumed. If it's Irish, it's learned.

53:53William Dalrymple:Yeah. And also probably a bucketload of charm comes in with an Irish visiting Irishman. I should say, probably that doesn't hurt at all. It's been absolutely wonderful to have you. Thank you so much for being with us. Where do we go to next, Willie? We're off to Pickland. We're off with Gordon Noble next to Port Marmock, actually. All those places. And East Lomond and Burghead. well so that debate continues and if you can't wait to hear about the picks you've got to join the club you know where to do where to go you know how to do it you want me to tell you do you want me to tell you you tell you tell this is your special bit have you forgotten it I can't take your slot empirepoduk.com empirepoduk it's only because he doesn't remember it empirepoduk.com and if you just follow the link and you know you'll become a member of our club you help us out you also get a whole bunch of good stuff like series on demand, no adverts, a newsletter, all of that kind of thing.

54:54William Dalrymple:Discounts on Darby's book. Yeah, discounts on Darby's book. Anyway, that one there. Till the next time we meet, though, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And goodbye from me. And goodbye from me, I presume. Goodbye to all. Goodbye from me, William Durable.

55:16a quick word for our empire listeners for a limited time only we are running a discount

55:23William Dalrymple:on the empire club we totally are it's our summer sale it's live now and from now until the end of august all you need to do is head to empirepoduk.com empirepoduk.com use the code summer 26 summer 26 you get an extra 20 % off annual membership this sizzling summer we would love you to join our Empire Club and we know you will love being a member of our community you'll get bonus episodes ad free listening early access to series and much more and your summer trips provide you that perfect opportunity to dive into our archives and catch up on all the exclusive content you might have missed before joining so you can listen to our interview with Yong Chang, our Willy's fabulous bonus on Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring and our exclusive four-part member series covering the scandal that shaped partition.

56:16So make the most of the deal before it ends at the end of August 2026. The code is SUMMER26 to be used on our annual membership at empirepoduk.com. We'd love you to become a member of our club and it's brilliant even if we say so ourselves. I'm not giving up. I am selling the building.

56:39William Dalrymple:The final season of FX is the Bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either going to be OK. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned. We have each other. FX is the Bear, the final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+. Every week, the Snap Judgment podcast drops you inside someone's biggest decision. The kind of decision you can only make once. With everything on the line, what do you believe? What do you want? And what would you risk to get it? Find out. Tap to listen now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify.

57:32Thank you.