On one side lay Italy, Spain, and Gaul, whose churches owned obedience to and remained in direct contact with the See of Rome, on the other, practically cut off from the general body of Christendom, lay the Church of Ireland.

But the condition of the two portions of Western Christendom was very different.

While the vigour of Christianity in Italy and Gaul and Spain was exhausted in a bare struggle for life, Ireland, which remained unscourged by invaders, drew from its conversion an energy such as it has never known since.
Christianity was received there with a burst of popular enthusiasm, and letters and arts sprang up rapidly in its train.

The science and Biblical knowledge which fled from the Continent took refuge in its schools.

The new Christian life soon beat too strongly to brook confinement within the bounds of Ireland itself.