Irish Saints

While not of Irish Ancestry, I thoroughly enjoyed this book on Irish saints and saintly people. Robert Reilly is an excellent story teller of these historical figures. I have read several books of St. Brendan, possibly the first European person to locate America and to leave a report about it which was able to influence Christopher Columbus into deciding to sail west to find it again. This is the best and most factual, or believable of the several accounts that I have read about him But the emphasis of all of these stories is on the love of these saints for Jesus and what they did as a result of this love. He closes the book with a prayer about which he says, "Since saintly lives are calculated to inspire us, a fitting close might be a 'Prayer to the Saints of Ireland' which I first learned from an Irish missal as a prisoner of war in Germany." I think this says a lot about why Robert strived so hard, and I believe succeeded, in writing a wonderful book about these saintly people. The saints that Robert Reilly has discussed in this book are: Saint Patrick Saint Brigid Saint Brendan Saint Columcille Saint Columban Saint Malachy Saint Laurence O'Toole Saint Oliver Plunkett Mother Catherine McAuley Father Theolbald Mathew Matt Talbot