By DAVID TALBOT
According to author Thomas Cahill, St. Patrick's Day should be more than just an occasion for drinking until we pass out. After all, it was the venerated missionary who brought faith and literacy to the wild and wooly Irish race in the fifth century. And it was these same Irish converts to the beauty of the written word who lovingly copied the classic works and sacred texts that were rapidly disappearing as the Dark Ages descended upon continental Europe. Without Patrick, argues Cahill in his entertaining and eye-opening "How the Irish Saved Civilization," there would have been no record of Plato, Ovid, and Homer.
After Patrick, the brave Irish missionaries he had inspired completed the circle of learning. These "White Martyrs," as they called themselves, journeyed to the continent, establishing monasteries and scriptoria among the fearsome Germanic tribes who held sway there, and teaching them how to read and make books.
The success of his book, which just climbed onto the New York Times Paperback Bestseller List, has prompted Cahill to leave his job as director of religious publishing at Doubleday to devote himself fulltime to completing an ambitious seven-part series on the major turning points in Western civilization -- what he calls "the hinges of history." The second book in the series will recount how the Jews established monotheism.
We spoke to Cahill about the extraordinary life of Patrick, why the Irish embraced him, and how his image today is wildly different from the real man.
Next page: Matchless courage and utter generosity
