# Quote — Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization

> Latin literature would almost certainly have been lost without the Irish, and illiterate Europe would hardly have developed its great national literatures without the example of the Irish, the first vernacular literature to be written down.

- Author: [Thomas Cahill](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-cahill.md)
- Book: [How the Irish Saved Civilization](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-cahill/how-the-irish-saved-civilization.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Cahill#How_the_Irish_Saved_Civilization_(1995)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-cahill/how-the-irish-saved-civilization/latin-literature-would

## More from this book

> Never interested in impressive edifices, Irish monks preferred to spend their time in study, prayer, farming—and, of course, copying. ...a little hut for each monk... a refectory and kitchen; a scriptorium and library; a smithy, a kiln, a mill, and a couple of barns; a modest church—and they were in business.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-cahill/how-the-irish-saved-civilization/never-interested-in-impressive.md)

> Beowulf grappling with the monstors was a type of Christ grappling with Satan.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-cahill/how-the-irish-saved-civilization/beowulf-grappling-with.md)

> For a century and a half—from the middle of the fifth century to the end of the sixth—there had been... no formal communication between Rome and the Christians of Britain, nor had there been any between Rome and Ireland...

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-cahill/how-the-irish-saved-civilization/for-a-century.md)