CHAPTER ¥V1U1 
Beautiful Book Making 
N\HE most convincing evidence for the high 
level of artistry as well as culture which the 
Irish reached long before the end of the first 
millennium of the Christian era is to be found in the 
extremely beautiful books that were their handi- 
work. These we know not from tradition but from 
actual inspection. In spite of their highly destructi- 
ble nature a goodly number of these have by singular 
good fortune been preserved for us for considerably 
more than a thousand years. We owe their con- 
servation for all this time to more than good fortune 
however. It is evident that Irish devotion to the 
cult of beautiful things succeeded in preventing the 
vicissitudes of time and foreign invasion to say noth- 
ing of domestic wars and local disturbances of all 
kinds from bringing about the almost inevitable 
destruction of such eminently perishable objects. 
To say that the most beautiful book in all the 
world was made during the eighth century or per- 
haps a little earlier in Ireland would be to arouse at 
once in most people the very definite reaction that 
any such superlative expression as that must surely 
represent an arrant exaggeration if not a positive 
misstatement. Bookmaking has developed so won- 
derfully in the modern times, while at the date men- 
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