With the advent of Christianity, books, reading and writing came to play a significant part in Irish life. (A form of notch-writing, ogham, may have been used a little earlier, but only for very limited purposes.) The finest illuminated manuscripts probably took decades to finish, after which they might be bound in materials incorporating high-quality metalwork and precious stones - which, unfortunately, made them all the more enticing to thieves and, later, to loot-hungry Vikings.

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