As an absolutely illegitimate scholar, but a former history major who's kept with Early Middle Ages papers nonetheless, the claim that Ireland by its lonesome s

As an absolutely illegitimate scholar, but a former history major who's kept with Early Middle Ages papers nonetheless, the claim that Ireland by its lonesome saved civilization (not just the Western one !) is silly. Its underlying postulate is that (Western) civilization was for all intents and purposes gone from the continent under the foot of the unwashed barbarian masses. That's an idea that was popularized by Gibbon and remained popular to this day in the English-speaking world, but it doesn't have much currency with serious historians of the Late Roman / Early Medieval world. If anything the Franks should get the credit for making Western Europe Nicean. There would be no Irish monks and missionaries in Gaul without it (which is what the whole book starts from). The Goths also had an active hand in keeping Roman institutions around. Ireland happened to be a repository of expertise for proselytism when it was needed by the policies of Western monarchs. What led to that, and the way Ireland became Christian without ever being part of the Roman world, that is to say while keeping their cultural institutions that went back as far as the Bronze Age in all likelihood, is the more fascinating aspect in my opinion.