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The Modern Traveller to the Early Irish Church
The monastic sites of early Christian Ireland have always been an attraction to visitors. Now issued in a new edition, this book is intended for use by those who wish to understand the religious and secular life of early Ireland. The authors have used the site remains and historical source material to reconstruct the life of Irish monks and laymen from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. Here the reader will find treatments of the function of monasteries in early Ireland, the daily life of their inhabitants, and the significance of their art and sculpture. The appendices include a county-by-county guide to the most interesting early Christian sites.
- GenresHistory
135 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
About the author
Kathleen Hughes
9 books2 followersKathleen Winifred Hughes was an English historian, her specialisation was Irish ecclesiastical history, particularly the early Christian Church in Ireland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathlee...
Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathlee...
Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 3, 2016
Review Title: If you haven't got a ha'penny
The price sticker on this book when it was sold new says £3.24 1/2. Ha'pennys no longer being minted, I paid €7.50 for it at a used book store using my credit card and considered it a good bargain. It is interesting to consider what lasts, even just 50 years later, and what changes. Ha'pennys as a form of currency have clearly not lasted, but this book has survived into the era of electronic currency.
Which is a good lead-in to my review of The Modern Traveler. Hughes and Hamlin compiled this guide to surviving sites of early (here from around 400 to 1200 AD) Christian activity (churches, monasteries, high crosses, hermitages) in Ireland (including the coastal islands particularly off the rugged west coast). Since what survives is what is valued, both this book and the sites it documents are clearly valued, and the sites perhaps no more so than today. Sure, Ireland is a tourist magnet, and some are introduced and interested to these sites from their roles as TV and movie settings (Skellig Michael, the remote rocky island with incredible surviving stone buildings that now represent Luke Skywalker's retirement home in the current Star Wars movie franchise, the prime example), but in any case the sites are being preserved and visited--and valued, increasing their chances of survival for future generations to come and wonder: "what would make someone come here and build this in such a remote location?" My recent reviews of How the Irish Saved Civilization and Ireland: Harbinger of the Middle Ages (my first edition priced in shillings, speaking of currency which has not survived) explain the why, Hughes and Hamlin describe the where and the what.
And although this slim paperback is easy to carry, includes a grid map of early Irish locations, and is touted on the cover as aimed at people visiting them, the book is actually arranged around the "what" of these sites, not the "where". Chapters describe typical functions, buildings, economy, stone carvings, and site layouts. The result is really geared more to understanding the sites and less to finding them. Which is actually a good thing as it turns out, since the active tourist industry in Ireland will help you find almost any of these sites, so understanding what went on there and why is more important. Bus tours from Galway, Dublin, or Cork will take you to the major sites documented here. I visited several of them myself while I was there recently on business, but only found this book on my last day there and read it after I was home. I wish I had found it first before visiting those sites, and when I go back I will definitely take this book along.
Hughes and Hamlin document some unique features of Irish monasticism. They were often:
--Mixed gender communities with married monks with children.
--Associated with local royal clans.
--Incorporated into local communities and economies, not "set apart"
Thus, many of these sites are near existing communities and towns, along major roads and water routes, at clan/kingdom boundaries, near royal castles, and built on earlier pagan sites. While this makes some of the larger and more typical sites easier to find and visit, the authors point out that it also makes it harder to find original, undamaged buildings and artifacts at those sites. Conversely, the more remote sites (the island sites like Skellig Michael, for example) may be better preserved because harder to reach, but less typical in terms of location, buildings, size, and purpose. But those remote sites can make up for it in atmosphere, as the authors note and I found out while visiting the Aran Islands in a misty fog. It was easy for me to imagine life there 1500 years ago among the mists and stone buildings, although hard to fathom the faith that inspired those men and women to such remoteness.
A couple of notes about the book:
1. It doesn't have any photographs, only line drawings of sites, buildings, and objects.
2. The illustrations are scattered throughout the book and frequently referenced by figure number, so you will need to use the list of illustrations often to find the illustrations.
3. This is well before GPS, but the list of recommended sites is keyed to the grid map in the book which should help you find them (or a bus tour that will take you there).
4. The list of sites provides a brief description of what can be seen there, but since these descriptions are now 50 years old, the sites may be substantially changed (hopefully for the better based on the latest archeological preservation and presentation techniques).
The price sticker on this book when it was sold new says £3.24 1/2. Ha'pennys no longer being minted, I paid €7.50 for it at a used book store using my credit card and considered it a good bargain. It is interesting to consider what lasts, even just 50 years later, and what changes. Ha'pennys as a form of currency have clearly not lasted, but this book has survived into the era of electronic currency.
Which is a good lead-in to my review of The Modern Traveler. Hughes and Hamlin compiled this guide to surviving sites of early (here from around 400 to 1200 AD) Christian activity (churches, monasteries, high crosses, hermitages) in Ireland (including the coastal islands particularly off the rugged west coast). Since what survives is what is valued, both this book and the sites it documents are clearly valued, and the sites perhaps no more so than today. Sure, Ireland is a tourist magnet, and some are introduced and interested to these sites from their roles as TV and movie settings (Skellig Michael, the remote rocky island with incredible surviving stone buildings that now represent Luke Skywalker's retirement home in the current Star Wars movie franchise, the prime example), but in any case the sites are being preserved and visited--and valued, increasing their chances of survival for future generations to come and wonder: "what would make someone come here and build this in such a remote location?" My recent reviews of How the Irish Saved Civilization and Ireland: Harbinger of the Middle Ages (my first edition priced in shillings, speaking of currency which has not survived) explain the why, Hughes and Hamlin describe the where and the what.
And although this slim paperback is easy to carry, includes a grid map of early Irish locations, and is touted on the cover as aimed at people visiting them, the book is actually arranged around the "what" of these sites, not the "where". Chapters describe typical functions, buildings, economy, stone carvings, and site layouts. The result is really geared more to understanding the sites and less to finding them. Which is actually a good thing as it turns out, since the active tourist industry in Ireland will help you find almost any of these sites, so understanding what went on there and why is more important. Bus tours from Galway, Dublin, or Cork will take you to the major sites documented here. I visited several of them myself while I was there recently on business, but only found this book on my last day there and read it after I was home. I wish I had found it first before visiting those sites, and when I go back I will definitely take this book along.
Hughes and Hamlin document some unique features of Irish monasticism. They were often:
--Mixed gender communities with married monks with children.
--Associated with local royal clans.
--Incorporated into local communities and economies, not "set apart"
Thus, many of these sites are near existing communities and towns, along major roads and water routes, at clan/kingdom boundaries, near royal castles, and built on earlier pagan sites. While this makes some of the larger and more typical sites easier to find and visit, the authors point out that it also makes it harder to find original, undamaged buildings and artifacts at those sites. Conversely, the more remote sites (the island sites like Skellig Michael, for example) may be better preserved because harder to reach, but less typical in terms of location, buildings, size, and purpose. But those remote sites can make up for it in atmosphere, as the authors note and I found out while visiting the Aran Islands in a misty fog. It was easy for me to imagine life there 1500 years ago among the mists and stone buildings, although hard to fathom the faith that inspired those men and women to such remoteness.
A couple of notes about the book:
1. It doesn't have any photographs, only line drawings of sites, buildings, and objects.
2. The illustrations are scattered throughout the book and frequently referenced by figure number, so you will need to use the list of illustrations often to find the illustrations.
3. This is well before GPS, but the list of recommended sites is keyed to the grid map in the book which should help you find them (or a bus tour that will take you there).
4. The list of sites provides a brief description of what can be seen there, but since these descriptions are now 50 years old, the sites may be substantially changed (hopefully for the better based on the latest archeological preservation and presentation techniques).
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December 27, 2022Another college course read I don't recall well enough to rate or review.
Here are a few notes:
By the 8th century "Christianity had been fully integrated with native institutions."
The sermons of Columbanus are the earliest Irish monastic documents.
Nuns were not strictly enclosed.
Clontarf had literary prestige, not political signficance.
Author seems to accept Sitric 's use of the Cross and coins and his founding a cathedral and making his daughter a nun as evidence that he was a "paragon of Christian virtues"
most bishops oof Dublin were Irish
Vikings increased slave trade 10th and 11th centuries.
Here are a few notes:
By the 8th century "Christianity had been fully integrated with native institutions."
The sermons of Columbanus are the earliest Irish monastic documents.
Nuns were not strictly enclosed.
Clontarf had literary prestige, not political signficance.
Author seems to accept Sitric 's use of the Cross and coins and his founding a cathedral and making his daughter a nun as evidence that he was a "paragon of Christian virtues"
most bishops oof Dublin were Irish
Vikings increased slave trade 10th and 11th centuries.
February 27, 2023
I can't believe it's taken me the entire month to read this little book. I guess I've just been so busy and very distracted. I first became interested in the monastic life when I took a course on Celtic Christianity at a very secular university about 15 years ago. I fell in love with studying monasteries, especially Skellig Michael which I read on extensively. Being a homeschooling mother of nine children, one wouldn't wonder why the idea of some obligated alone time wouldn't appeal...
December 12, 2014
A great overview of early Irish monastic sites. I'm making a new list of sites to see!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews