these men were trained, we have only to remember that Colgu, who had
been educated at Clonmacnois, was the master of Alcuin; that Dicuil
the Geographer came from the same school; that Cummian, Abbot and
Bishop of Clonfert, combated the errors about the paschal computation
with an extent of learning and a wealth of knowledge amazing in a
monk of the seventh century; and that at the close of the eighth
century two Irishmen went to the court of Charlemagne and were
described by a monk of St. Gall as "men incomparably skilled in human
learning". The once pagan Ireland had by that time become a citadel
of Christianity, and was rightfully called the School of the West,
the Island of Saints and Scholars.

With this state of progress and prosperity the Danes played sad
havoc. Animated with the fiercest pagan fanaticism, they turned with
fury against Christianity, and especially against monks and religious
foundations. Armagh, Clonmacnois, Bangor, Kildare, and many other
great monastic establishments thus fell before their fury. Ignorance,
neglect of religion, and corruption of manners followed, and from the
eighth to the twelfth century there was a noted falling off in the
number of Irish scholars. At home indeed were Cormac and Maelmurra,
O'Hartigan and O'Flynn, and abroad was John Scotus Erigena, whose
learning was so great that it excited astonishment even at Rome. The
love of learning and zeal for religion lived on through this long
period of accumulated disasters. After the triumph of Brian Boru at
Clontarf, there was a distinct revival of piety and learning; and,
when a century of turmoil followed Brian's fall and religion again
suffered, nothing was wanted to bring the people back to a sense of
their duty but the energy and reforming zeal of St. Malachy.

Gerald Barry, the notorious Anglo-Norman, who visited Ireland towards