Saturday 17 March 2012

Google and the Book of Kells

I got very excited this morning when I saw that the Google doodle is celebrating St Patrick's Day by taking inspiration from the Book of Kells! It's a lovely idea and a gorgeous design. Despite my Irish ancestors and general love of saints' days, St Patrick's Day is not my favourite holiday, but this is a delightful way to celebrate Irish culture. (I understand why people like St Patrick's Day, but I get vaguely annoyed when it goes along with this weird fascination some English people have with Ireland and its uniquely mystical magical super-special medieval history. "Celtic spirituality is so profound," they sigh, "why don't we have anything like that in England?" Well, we do, you just never troubled to educate yourself about it...)

Anyway, I hope this starts a trend - Google, next Tuesday (2o March) is St Cuthbert's feast day, so maybe we could have something from the Lindisfarne Gospels? And next month, something like this for the 1000th anniversary of St Alphege's death? A medieval manuscript for every day of the year would be just lovely, thank you.

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