In Search Of Ancient Ireland
IN SEARCH OF ANCIENT IRELAND traces the history and legends of ancient Ireland. Beginning in 2000 B.C. -- when Stone Age farmers built some of the largest and most spectacular Neolithic monuments in Europe -- the series explores events and stories from millennia of history, to 1167 A.D., when the Norman invasion placed Ireland under control of England's king. There is no written history for much of this period -- writing arrived in Ireland with Christian missionaries in the fifth century A.D. -- so stories of earlier events are pieced together from archeological evidence and the wealth of Celtic myths and legends preserved in oral memory and first written down, much embellished, by Christian monks in the ninth century.