Search Results for 'SAINTS'

Ireland has had the reputation for many centuries as the island of saints and scholars. The vast majority of these saints lived during the fourth to 10th centuries, the period of early Christian Ireland, when Celtic Christianity produced many missionaries to Great Britain and the European continent. The history behind the phrase begins with the Roman Empire’s collapse in the fifth century, Europe was in a state of serious intellectual and social decay as its institutions crumbled. Insulated on the western shores of Europe, Ireland’s institutions could continue to prosper and evolve without interruption leading to a period of intellectual, religious, and artistic superiority that has been called ‘Ireland’s Golden Age’. It is during this period Ireland earned the title ‘Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum – The Island of Saints and Scholars’.