Author Sally Jane Driscoll:"Ireland was far from the Classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. The Roman civilization stopped at the west coast of the English island. But eventually Rome arrived as missionaries bearing Christianity.

What did Christianity offer Ireland? Christianity banished the hideous carrion Goddess. It did that not only by replacing her with a gentler and more powerful God, but by offering identity where there had been chaos.

The Christian God was more powerful than the most powerful wizard who could speak magic words to transform you into a stone. This new God was so powerful that transformation was ended forever. No more would a mother turn her head for a moment and look back to find that her newborn had grown owl feathers and flown into a tree. No more would a father hunting with his son find that the boy had become a boar.

Those transformations were real—in the mind. But reality was not yet real in the mind. The Christian God, the All-Seeing Mind that created the universe with a Word—that God created an orderly universe. And with order, reality became real."

•