These Irish monks places are a funny old lot. A bit like the leprechaun's gold. It disappears when the sunlight hits it.
It's not just Jarrow, but Whitby as well. And Lindisfarne and even Iona. You'd have thought there would be something left of these places. After all there are plenty of stone monks' cells in Ireland. Assuming they were built by monks that is.
Time Team did a thing on Lindisfarne some time ago and were mystified as to why they couldn't really find anything. It can't be due to age as the Normans were able to build stuff that lasted and it's not much younger and there are Anglo Saxon churches still standing in various areas.
St Tony of the Trowels is involved in an organisation determined to find the Lindisfarne abbey.
He added: “Surprisingly little is known about the early monastery, and very little has been found from it, mainly a few scraps of broken masonry with poor records of where exactly they were recovered.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/201 ... excavationPerhaps the megalithics should start crowdfunding to raise a bit of cash as well?
Over on Iona Columba seems to have suffered the same fate in spite of banning women and cows from the island. He even buried his mate in the foundations to make sure the place would survive. But none of it worked. Apart from getting rid of frogs and snakes.
The strangest claim of all however is that Columba was prevented from completing the building of the original chapel until a living person had been buried in the foundations. His friend Oran volunteered for the job and was duly buried. It is said that Columba later requested that Oran’s face to be uncovered so he could bid a final farewell to his friend. Oran’s face was uncovered and he was found to be still alive but uttering such blasphemous descriptions of Heaven and Hell that Columbus ordered that he be covered up immediately
I think that Columbus really means Columba. Perhaps it is good old Oran having a dig at him from the foundations.
Although the Vikings attacked Iona the place was very well established and became the centre for the spread of Christianity across Scotland and northern England as well as the Continent. But it was Rome that finally did for them. A case of Blue on Blue or friendly fire or whatever they call it these days.
The Celtic Church, lacking central control and organisation, diminished in size and stature over the years to be replaced by the much larger and stronger Roman Church. Even Iona was not exempt from these changes and in 1203 a nunnery for the Order of the Black Nuns was established and the present-day Benedictine Abbey was built. The Abbey was a victim of the Reformation and lay in ruins until 1899 when its restoration started.
No part of St. Columba’s original buildings have survived, however on the left hand side of the Abbey entrance can be seen a small roofed chamber which is claimed to mark the site of the saint’s tomb.
http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Hi ... e-of-Iona/So it looks like the Romans did for them all and no doubt destroyed their buildings and presence in the islands as if to show who was the boss.
Unless the Romans invented them as a justification for retaking Britain? Rather like the Soviet Union which was forever giving fraternal help to its satellites in the shape of tanks and soldiers. Rome comes to show Britain how to do it properly. None of this Irish superstition. We know a better one and we've got soldiers.