The affection for this 6th-Century monk can be striking, he says, citing how a year or so ago he was talking to a woman at a parish in the Midlands. “She was talking about Colmcille and had I not known it I’d have got the impression that he had emigrated a few weeks ago,” he says. In the most recent research investigating Europeans’ attitudes towards science, 70 per cent of people surveyed agreed that having an interest in science leads to improvements in culture. But what role does science have to play in Irish culture? It is easy to associate music, language, dance, art or story-telling with our national heritage, but does science belong there too? The seventh miracle occurred, apparently, when St Féichín raised a two-tonne stone doorway lintel into place by the power of prayer in the 10 th century – when he had been dead some time. Despite the time travel issues, the lintel remains in place to this day. Other idiosyncratic features include a hermit’s cell and a fine cloister arcade built later as part of a Benedictine priory by landlord Hugh De Lacy, who also constructed Trim Castle (a setting for the movie Braveheart) about 20 miles away. A marked trail around Fore covers most of the sights, and it is a remarkably beautiful setting. In Fore village is something else that hasn’t changed in a while – the Seven Wonders Pub. There is, of course, an abundance of books out there about ‘Celtic spirituality’ that owe rather more to the ‘New Age’ beliefs and practices than the historical Church in these islands, but Fr Ó Ríordáin says it’s important to focus on the Christian character of the Irish saints. Focus

Ancient manuscripts show that Ireland was a major centre for the study of mathematics centuries ago. We had some of the foremost practitioners of the fine art of Computus, the difficult business of calculating the date of Easter far into the future. He kind of transcends all the centuries and that affection is there and has been there all the centuries,” he continues. “I can’t explain it otherwise, except that it is what it is. I suppose the whole thing of going into exile, with our most recent history of emigration has a lot of meaning for them.”Renowned for her generosity and care for the poor, Saint Brigid famously converted a dying man by making up a cross with rushes she found on the ground to bless him with, something children in Ireland learn to make in school on her feast day 1st February. Cummian's expertise was shown in letters dating from 633 between him and the abbot of Iona, Ségéne. Cummian had changed his method for calculating the fall of Easter, breaking away from the method adopted by monasteries founded by Colm Cille and adopting the one used in Rome. This caused Ségéne to accuse Cummian of heresy. Hagiography is fascinating, especially Irish hagiography, in particular the lives of early Irish saints. This ancient literary genre was an important way of recording the extraordinary lives of saints and the miracles and incredible feats attributed to them. But the manuscripts, along with later archaeological discoveries, also show the Irish in the eighth century AD were adept engineers, making improvements in technologies used for metal-working and agriculture, and we even had a reputation as boat-builders. Given how strict Celtic monasticism could be, it’s striking that in the development of penitential books and personal Confession it took major steps towards realising the Church’s capacity to be a channel of God’s mercy.

Christianity first came to Ireland between the 3rd and 5th Centuries and while much of Europe was plunging into the Dark Ages, Ireland provided a beacon of light. The book explains how the monks here were well connected to earlier thinkers, for example the sixth-century philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius and his pivotal work De Institutione Arithmetica – De Institutione Musica. "There is a very lively engagement with mathematics between Ireland and Britain; it is high- level mathematics." It was certainly quite common in the Celtic world,” says Fr Ó Ríordáin. “What happened to the Columban rule is that it was too strict for the continentals, with the result that they moved towards the Benedictine rule, which was more benign. As a result nearly all the Columban monasteries on the continent became Benedictine abbeys. Other saints who would have inherited pagan attributes and anecdotes would have includes St Senan at Scattery Island, who would have acquired details originally linked with the pagan river-god Seanan, he says, adding that St Ailbhe in Emly would similarly have been an inheritor of a long pre-Christian tradition. The absolution side of it was something that developed from the spiritual direction of a person,” he adds. LegacyWhereas, what is your relationship with someone like Jesus? Some of the martyrs in Egypt who were beheaded last year, and one of them muttering the name Jesus as they were about to take the head off him: he had relationship there.” A family feud set Gobnait on her spiritual journey, which led her first to study with St Enda. (She was his only female student.) One story tells of how St Gobnait stopped the spread of plague by using honey as a cure; another states that she used her stave to draw a white line that prevented the plague entering her parish. At a recent talk by Dr Immo Warntjes at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies, I was surprised to learn the origins of Ireland's title as "the land of saints and scholars". I had thought that the beautiful artistry of manuscripts like the Book of Kells and stories of saints like Brigid were the source of this national title, but it seems this badge of pride comes, in fact, from the scientific habits of mind of our Irish monks. From the sixth to the 15th century the only science of import in western Europe was the computation of the date of Easter. As part of this science, known as "computus", algorithms had to be invented to calculate the time between Lent and Easter Sunday, which would also align with lunar cycles.