vokes the seven hundred true monks who were buried at Rathinn before the coming of Mochuda, upon being expelled thence to Lismore,' and the 'eight hundred who settled in Lismore with Mochuda, every third of them a favoured servant of God.' Then we have a monastery at Lethglin containing fifteen hundred monks, when he invokes the three hundred and twelve hundred true monks settled in Lethglin, who sang the praises of God under Molaisse, the two Ernas, and the holy martyr bishops of Lethglin.' Finally, the great monastery and seminary of Clonard, from whence emanated the twelve apostles of Ireland, contained, as we have seen, three thousand monks. monastic When Brendan, one of the twelve, is said to have been The the father of three thousand monks, and four thousand are family. said to have been under the rule of Comgall of Bennchar, or Bangor, it is probable that these numbers included the inmates of other monasteries, either founded by them or under their jurisdiction. The aggregate of monks in each monastery was termed its Muintir, or 'familia;' but this word seems to have been used both in a narrow sense for the community in each monastery and also in a broader signification, for the entire body of monks, wherever situated, who were under its jurisdiction.47 The monks were termed brethren. The elders, termed seniors, gave themselves up entirely to devotion and the service of the church, while their chief occupation in their cells consisted in transcribing the Scriptures. In the monastery of Lughmagh there were under Bishop Mochta sixty seniors; and of them it is said sense. 47 It is used by Tighernac in this He has at 718, 'Tonsura corona super familiam Iae datur' (Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 74); while Bede in his account of the same event says, 'Nec multo post illi quoque qui insulam Hii incolebant Island monas teries. Three-score psalm-singing seniors There was then a class of working brethren who were occu- The larger monasteries were usually situated on the mainland; but the small islands round the coast, or in the inland lochs, appear to have possessed an irresistible attraction for the founders of these monasteries, probably from the security against danger and the protection from intrusion which they afforded, and on them the smaller communities probably were settled. Of the islands round the coast of Ireland, the three Aran isles, which lie off the coast of Galway, seem to have at once attracted these settlements. Among the class of saints who were trained to the monastic life in the monastery of Whithern, while Finnian founded the great monastery and seminary of Maghbile or Moville in Ulster, Enda at once directed his steps to these islands, and we are told in his Acts that, having received a grant of the island of Aran from King Angus of Munster, he collected a company of disciples, and divided the island into ten parts, in which he constructed ten monasteries, placing in each one superior, as father, and another as second in power who should succeed the first on 48 Mart. Donegal, p. 216. See also Adam. Vit. S. Col., B. iii. c. 4. 49 Auditoque ejus accessu, universi undique ab agellulis monas terio vicinis cum his qui ibidem his death. He directed that the seniors should be buried with the rest, but that the bishops who succeeded them should be interred in their own proper cemeteries, and he founded his own monastery at the east end of the island, which is still called the Cell of St. Enda.51 This island is now known as Ara na Navach, or Aran of the Saints. Tory Island, off the north-west coast; Rachra, off the north-east; Rechra, or Lambay, in the Irish Channel, and other small islands, became likewise the seats of similar foundations. Of the twelve apostles of Ireland, we find that threeMolaisse of Devenish, Senell of Cluaininnis, and Ninnidh of Inismacsaint, founded their chief monasteries on three small islands in Lough Erne; and on two other islands in the same lake there were also monasteries. In Lough Ree, a lake formed by the Shannon, there were five; and in Lough Corrib and Lough Derg, both also formed by the Shannon, there were, in the former, three, and in the latter two monasteries. Wherever the river Shannon in its course formed a small island there was also a monastery; and the number of these island monasteries throughout Ireland generally was very great. teries were colonies. The monastic system which thus characterised the Irish MonasChurch in its second period and pervaded its organisation Christian in every part, forming its very life, presented features which peculiarly adapted it to the tribal constitution of the social system of the Irish, and led to their being leavened with Christianity to an extent which no other form of the church could have effected. These large monasteries, as in their external aspect they appeared to be, were in reality Christian colonies, into which converts, after being tonsured, were brought under the name of monks. Thus we are told in the Life of Brendan that, as soon as he had been ordained priest by Bishop Erc he also received from him the monastic garb; and many leaving the world came to him, whom he made 51 Colgan, A.SS., p. 707. monks, and he then founded, in his own proper region, cells and monasteries,' till they reached the number of three thousand.52 There was thus in each tribe a Christian community to which the people were readily drawn, and in which they found themselves possessed of advantages and privileges without their actual social position with reference to the tribe and the land being essentially altered. They formed as it were a great ecclesiastical family within the tribe, to which its members were drawn by the attractions it presented to them. These were, first, greater security of life and property. Before the tribes were to any extent brought under the civilising influences of Christianity, life must have been, in a great measure, a reign of violence, in which every man had to protect his life and property as he best might; and the struggle among these small communities, either to maintain their own rights, or to encroach on those of others, and the constant mutual warfare to which it gave rise, must have exposed the lives of their members to incessant danger. To them the Christian community offered an asylum in which there was comparative rest and relief from danger at the cost of observing the monastic rule. An anecdote in Columba's early life, told us by Adamnan, will show clearly enough what must have been the state of early society in Ireland in this respect. When the holy man,' he says, 'while yet a youth in deacon's orders, was living in the region of Leinster, learning divine wisdom, it happened one day that an unfeeling and pitiless oppressor of the innocent was pursuing a young girl, who fled before him on a level plain. As she chanced to observe the aged Gemman, master of the foresaid 52 Accepitque Sanctus Brendanus cum esset sacerdos habitum monasticum sanctum. Et multi relinquentes sæculum hinc inde venerunt ad eum et fecit eos Sanctus Brendanus monachos. Deinde cellas et monasteria fundavit in sua propria regione et multa monasteria et cellas per diversas regiones Hyberniæ fundavit in quibus tria millia monachorum ut perhibetur a senioribus sub eo erant.-Acta S. Brendani, p. 10. young deacon, reading on the plain, she ran straight to him as fast as she could. Being alarmed at such an unexpected occurrence, he called on Columba, who was reading at some distance, that both together, to the best of their ability, might defend the girl from her pursuer; but he immediately came up, and without any regard to their presence, stabbed the girl with his lance under their very cloaks, and leaving her lying dead at their feet, turned to go away back. Then the old man, in great affliction, turning to Columba, said, "How long, holy youth Columba, shall God, the just judge, allow this horrid crime and this insult to us to go unpunished?" Then the saint at once pronounced this sentence on the perpetrator of the deed; "At the very instant the soul of this girl whom he hath murdered ascendeth into heaven, shall the soul of the murderer go down into hell;" and scarcely had he spoken the words when the murderer of the innocent, like Ananias before Peter, fell down dead on the spot before the eyes of the holy youth. The news of this sudden and terrible vengeance was soon spread abroad throughout many districts of Ireland, and with it the wonderful fame of the holy deacon.' 53 Thus there soon sprang up a belief that any violation of the protection to life afforded by these Christian communities would draw down on the perpetrator the vengeance of the Christian's God. Adamnan's Life is pervaded by similar instances of the insecurity of life and property through crime and oppression. But these monasteries, or Christian communities, like- Privilege of sanctuary. wise claimed the privilege of sanctuary within their bounds, which was fenced by similar religious sanctions. The loss of a battle, or any similar misfortune which befell any one who had violated this right of sanctuary, was directly attributed to such violation, till it became a confirmed belief that it could not be infringed with impunity. Thus, when the battle of Culdremhne was fought between Diarmaid, king 53 Adam. Vit. Col., B. ii. c. 26. 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