Was Clonard, in Meath, the earliest university in Europe? Five hundred years before Oxford?
It depends on what you mean by university. The modern concept of a university is ‘a community of teachers, researchers and students focused on knowledge creation and playing a crucial role in education and public service’. Yes, that could describe Clonard too.
Schools like Clonard, which emerged in Ireland from the 6th century onward, preserved classical learning and culture during a period of political and social upheaval in Western Europe. They were not for beginners but were centres of higher learning teaching Latin, writing, history, chanting, arithmetic and timekeeping.
Finnian of Myshall founded Clonard in 520 after thirty years of study in Ireland and aboard. Those whose came to learn there, from other parts of Ireland and Europe, numbered in their thousands. Among them were the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’ who went on to found ‘universities’ themselves.
(The twelve might not have not all studied there or at the same time, the list was intended to say, ‘Anyone who was anyone in the early days studied at Clonard.’)
By modern standards Bologna (founded 1088) is considered the oldest university in continuous operation in Europe and the word ‘continuous ‘ is important.
A great part of the Clonard monastery, and all its library, was consumed by an accidental fire in 1143. From then on, and under Norman control, its reputation as a ‘university’ declined and today (incredible in any place but Ireland) hardly a trace remains.
An information board at the entrance gate is beginning to fade. There is no certainty as to where the actual ‘university’ stood. The only clear link with the past are a field where the monks were buried and the well Finnian dug, now (ironically?) well preserved and cared for in the centre of a meadow.
I keep going back to Clonard in the hope of seeing a sign that something is being done to recall its contribution to a recovering Europe for over six hundred years. I end up apologising again to Finnian and his pupils because they have been forgotten so easily.
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