Blindboy Boatclub, writer and podcaster, is a non-believer. He doesn’t believe in any god or religion. And yet, in this documentary he decides to explore the origins and evolution of early Irish Christianity, hermits, saints and monasteries, to try and find out who they were, what motivated them and what did they do?
Blindboy, with input from experts, interrogates our early medieval history. The Land of Slaves and Scholars lays bare the treasures of Ireland for all to see, from ancient stone circles to the Skellig Islands and back. Guided by a soundtrack composed by Blindboy himself, this documentary asks: What did Irish Christian missionaries, hermits, and monasteries contribute to the Irish writing tradition, a question Blindboy is particularly interested in.
The documentary was filmed throughout Ireland from Nendrum Monastery on the shores of Strangford Lough to the Skelligs off the coast of Kerry. It visits sites of worship as diverse as the cave in Roscommon that Halloween emerged from, to the major monasteries that made Ireland a cultural power in the middle ages, talking to historians, storytellers, psychologists and calligraphers.
