Well there was a very vibrant literature, literary culture but it was very much its own. It did not participate in the new learning of the Renaissance in Europe as other European countries did; it was very, well it was influenced by it, but to a very slight degree. You had this self-contained local culture, literary culture, with very Early roots which is unique in Europe, I think, there’s nothing like it. No other throughout the fringe countries in Europe has this continuing literary culture of its own, self-contained.

But in a way this could have been a bad thing for Ireland because it prevented modernisation which was necessary for survival, and it’s interesting Ireland never acquired a university. Now, Scotland had three universities by 1500, bringing in foreign ideas and new ideas, including the Reformation. Ireland had no university: attempts to found one in Dublin had failed, there is no university until Trinity College is founded in Dublin in 1594 and from the beginning that is an instrument of Anglicisation.