Abstract
The book of Kells at Trinity College Dublin, composed around AD 800, attracts almost one million visitors a year. It has become a symbol of Irish identity, a reminder of its glorious past as an island of saints and scholars. Its artwork provides some insight into the thought-world of the time. Its text, the four Gospels, however, does not. In order to get a glimpse of the early medieval Irish intellectual endeavour, one has to systematically mine the manuscript libraries of Europe. This lecture will reconstruct the monastic scientific mind of pre-Viking Ireland on the basis of the most spectacular discoveries of the past four decades.