The period dealt with covering as it does the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries is one of the most obscure in the history of education. In accordance with established custom writers are wont to bewail the decline of learning consequent on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and then they pass on rapidly to the Renaissance in the fifteenth; a few, however, pause to glance at the Carolingian Revival of learning in the ninth century and to remark parenthetically that learning was preserved in Ireland and a few isolated places on the fringe of Roman Civilization, but with some notable exceptions writers as a class have failed to realise that as in other departments of human knowledge there is a continuity in the history of education. The great connecting link between the Renaissance and the Graeco-Roman culture which flourished in Western Europe during the early centuries of our era is the Irish Monastic Schools. Modern research clearly points to the conclusion that the history of these schools is in reality a chapter in the history of education in Western Europe. While we do not claim that the Irish schools were the sole factor in the preservation and transmission of letters during the Early Middle Ages we are certainly convinced that they played a leading part. The cumulative evidence which we submit amply warrants this conclusion. The many tributes of a complimentary nature which scholars have bestowed on the work of the Irish Monastic Schools would indicate that the importance of their influence has not been overlooked; yet it seems to us that their real aim and character have not always been clearly understood. In a certain respect these schools were unique: they were neither purely classical schools of the type that flourished in Gaul in the fourth century, nor were they mere theological seminaries such as existed in certain parts of Britain and the Continent that lay outside the Irish sphere of influence. The peculiar character of the Irish monastic school would appear to be the result of the harmonious combination of three distinct elements: 1, Native Irish Culture; 2, Christianity; 3, Graeco-Roman Culture. We believe that this conception of Irish monastic culture furnishes the key to a proper understanding of the real significance of Irish scholarship during the Early Middle Ages. No study of Irish monastic schools which neglected to give due consideration to the potent influence of each of these three constituents would be adequate even if it were intelligible. The force of this conviction which is the result of a prolonged and critical examination of all the relevant material to hand has determined the form which the present study has assumed.