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by Connie Marshner (Author)
From the beginning of Celtic scholarship in English, there was mention of Egyptians in ancient Ireland. However, allusion to "seven Egyptian monks in Desert Uilaidh" in the Litany of the Céile Dé from the seventh century Book of Leinster was dismissed as merely symbolic.
But evidence continues to accumulate that connections with the Mediterranean in ancient Ireland were real.
Archaeology documents frequent commerce between Ireland and the whole Mediterranean world from prehistory forward. Over the years, more and more similarities, links, and borrowings between ancient Ireland and the East have been found in art, architecture, literature, and liturgy, hymnody, and monastic custom.
From the art in the Book of Kells to some passages in the Antiphonary of Bangor to images on Irish high crosses, there are parallels too close and too frequent and accidental to be.
Monastery and High Cross is a cross-disciplinary meta-analysis of English-language research into these questions over the last one hundred and sixty years. It reviews scholarship in history, art, architecture, monastic traditions, liturgical and literary allusions, and assembles a comprehensive and thought-provoking collection of evidence.
Author Biography
Connie Marshner fell in love with Ireland when she was in middle school and with the Eastern Church when she found Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek Catholic Church in McLean, Virginia, a few years later. She heard echoes of Eastern hymnody in some late-antique Irish prayers and poetry, and the pursuit of a master's degree in Gaelic literature at University College Cork gave her the opportunity to do in-depth research on the topic. Monastery and High Cross is drawn from her 2022 dissertation. A teacher of, she is the chair of the Saints and Scholars Foundation, which supports a new model of faithful Catholic education for modern secular Ireland, www.saintsandscholars.us. She lives in Front Royal, Virginia.
