How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History Book 1)

by Thomas Cahill

the bureaucratic and social establishments of Rome had become so top-heavy and entrenched that effective reform was no longer possible.

It is a shame that private confession is one of the few Irish innovations that passed into the universal church. How different might Catholicism be today if it had taken over the easy Irish sympathy between churchmen and laymen and the easy Irish attitudes toward diversity, authority, the role of women, and the relative unimportance of sexual mores.

on the death of the anti-Irish Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims: Hic jacet Hincmarus, cleptes vehementer avarus, Hoc solum gessit nobile: quod periit. Here lies Hincmar, crook. But savage greed aside, He did one truly noble thing: he died. His wine-soaked dinners with the emperor were full of parrying wit. “Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum?” (“What separates a fool from an Irishman?”) asked the emperor

“Tabula tantum” (“Only the table”), came Eriugena’s reply. No wonder there is a legend that his students finally stabbed him to death with their pens.