OECD survey - Isle of saints and scholars no more

It is hard to imagine that Ireland was once the university of Europe, an island of learning and classical scholarship that outshone anything the continent had to offer.

For 300 years — from the sixth to the ninth century — Irish monks studied, taught and spread learning to England, Scotland and continental Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire.

It was during the so-called Dark Ages elsewhere in Europe — the period of intellectual darkness between the “light of Rome” and the Renaissance — that they flourished.