Christianity provided a central and powerful belief system around which the diverse facets of pagan art could be unified and redirected. As a Church, Irish Christianity developed independently and vigorously. The Irish monasteries, at first humble and primitive, flourished into seats of learning and art, sending monks to found monasteries in Northern Britain, and thence throughout Europe.

The structure of the Celtic society in Ireland at that time was such that it assimilated Christianity with ease. Throughout the many kingdoms a strict hierarchy prevailed from aristocracy through the warrior caste to the common people.

But apart from the aristocracy was a special professional elite whose skills gave them status regardless of their birth. These were called Aes Dana, men of art - poets, historians, musicians, lawyers, artist, priests - and they had powerful voice as well as high status. The social structure fostered highly specialised schools of artistic apprenticeship, in which is the root of that perfection and technical adroitness which characterized Irish art in the Golden Age. In Irish literature we find persons are distinguished in terms of individual accomplishment, or specialization.