Every Letter of the Book Was Written by Hand in Kells. Now It's Your Turn.

A Monastery Columnist piece, written in character. Brother Ultan is a fictional scribe; his journal is imagined, the craft and history are not. The competition at the end is real.

The abbot has given me two boys to teach. I asked what I had done to deserve it. He said nothing, which was the answer.

They are small. One is all elbows. The other holds the stylus like a spoon and makes his letters with his tongue out, very serious. I liked him at once. I did not tell him.

We do not start them on calfskin. Calfskin costs a calf. We start on wax: a wooden board with a skin of wax in it, and a pointed stylus. Write, rub it smooth with the flat end, write again. Wax forgives everything. Vellum forgives nothing. I begin with wax because I am a merciful man, whatever Brother Fergal says.

First lesson: sit up. A slumped scribe makes slumped letters. Second lesson: slowly. The hand learns what the hand repeats. Third lesson: every letter already has its shape, and your job is to find it, not to invent a better one.

The elbow boy argued about the tail of the g for most of the morning. He was wrong. He was also, I admit, quite good.

By the evening bell the spoon boy had made a row of round, upright letters, each one sitting on the line as if it paid rent there. He looked at me. I looked at the row. I said, "Again." He grinned, because he knew that was praise.

Here is what I meant to tell them, and did not, because boys stop listening after one sentence. Nobody in this place was born a scribe. Every hand in the scriptorium was once a small hand on a wax board, getting the g wrong. The great Gospel book we are making here is only patience, piled up page on page. Practice, in one place, for years.

Kells is a making town. The masons make walls. Áine makes vellum out of a calf and a bad smell. Fergal makes colours, and now and then a small fire. Gormlaith makes gold do as it is told. I make plain columns, straight and readable, so the beasts on the great pages have something to stand on. And now two small boys are making their first letters. That is the whole of it. We make things here. It is what we are for.

A good word, well written, outlasts the hand that wrote it. I have seen it. I fully intend to be outlasted.

From the reader in Kells today: I teach calligraphy in Kells now, and I read Ultan's journal off my candle-powered reader the way other people read the news. This entry made me sit up straight, which I suspect was the idea.

Because there is a handwriting competition on right now, and every young hand in Kells should be in it.

The An Post Handwriting Competition is open to primary school pupils, from Junior and Senior Infants right up to 6th Class. This year An Post has teamed up with Kabin Crew, and the theme is "Making Better Happen": pupils use their best handwriting to share how their words, ideas and actions can make things better, in their own lives, in their community and in the wider world. Entries are accepted in Irish as well as English. Ultan would approve. Twice.

It runs through the classroom. An Post has classroom slides and lesson plans for each class group, from the Infants up to 5th and 6th. Teachers fill out the class entry form and post it with the pupils' handwritten entries to An Post Handwriting Competition, PO Box 13287, FREEPOST FDN7461, Dublin 1. The closing date is 22 January 2027.

So, teachers of Kells: sign your class up. Parents: ask your child's teacher if the school is entering. Big brothers and sisters: help the small ones practise. And kids: sit up, go slowly, and find the shape of the letter.

Think about it. One of the most famous books in the world was written by hand, here, in this town. It is in our name. It is in our DNA. Making things is what Kells does, and it always has been. No town in Ireland has a better claim to a good hand.

And Ultan is right. A word, well written, can make things better. Ours would make one thing a lot better. The Book that was made here sits behind glass in Dublin, 69 km away. It should come home. Not on loan. Home. If you want to help with that too, there are six ways to get involved.