From a New York Times obit by Clay Risen headlined “Thomas Cahill, Popular Writer of Ireland’s History, Dies at 82”:

Thomas Cahill, a multilingual scholar who wrote a surprise 1995 best seller demonstrating to the world how a small band of Irish monks collected and protected the jewels of Western civilization after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, died at his home in Manhattan. His wife, Susan Cahill, said the cause was a heart attack.

“How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe” was not Mr. Cahill’s first book. But it immediately established his reputation as one of the country’s great writers of popular history.