Saints, Scholars and Story-Makers: Voices of Early Christian Ireland

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Born a pagan slave, fostered by a druid, a pillar of fire erupting above her, in one vita St. Brigid causes her brother's eye to explode when he tries to force her into a marriage against her will. Ireland is well-known as the Land of Saints and Scholars, the phrase conjuring up images of the holy triad of Patrick, Brigid and Columba (or Colmcille), and illuminated gospels like the Book of Kells. But stories of the saints can seem more at home in a mythic Celtic world, while the sagas of goddesses and ancient kings often show these pagan figures behaving like exemplary biblical characters. This course asks the following questions: What stories, images, icons and practices did the Irish promote when creating and developing the resources needed by a newly Christianized people? How did the Irish hold on to their ancestral beliefs and customs, revere rather than dismiss their pagan deities, heroines and heroes, or beliefs about the environment - this world and the otherworld? How did they create spaces for different voices, concerns, principles and people that are not always highlighted in official dogma? How did the Irish innovate to become famous as the Land of Saints and Scholars, their creations exported throughout Christendom? How have the products and stories of Early Christian Ireland been re-appropriated in later times? Do they still speak to us, and why? This course considers the brilliant ways that Ireland's early storymakers and artists fused elements from past and present, local tradition and universalized Christian ritual, to come up with something new, powerful and enduring.