An Ogham stone. See note, [next page].
Bronze sword. A hilt was fixed on by rivets.
Bronze spear-head. A long handle was fixed in the socket and fastened by a rivet.

IX.
HOW RELIGION AND LEARNING FLOURISHED IN IRELAND.

As soon as St. Patrick had entered on his mission in Ireland, he began to found monasteries, which continued to spread through every part of the country for hundreds of years after his time. Though religion was their main object, these establishments were among the chief means of spreading general [enlightenment] among the people. Almost every monastery had a school or college attached, at the head of which was some man who was a great scholar and teacher. The teachers were generally monks: but many learned laymen were also employed. Some colleges had very large numbers of students: for instance, we are told that there were 3000 in each of the two colleges of Clonard and Bangor[16]; and many others might be named, which, though not so large, had yet several hundred students in each.

In these monasteries and their schools all was life and activity. The monks were always busily employed; some at tillage on the farm round the monastery—ploughing, digging, sowing, reaping—some teaching, others writing books. The duty of a few was to attend to travellers, to wash their feet and prepare supper and bed for them: for strangers who called at the monastery were always received with welcome, and got lodging, food, and attendance from the monks, all free. Others of the inmates, again, employed themselves in cooking, or carpentry, or smithwork, or making clothes, for the use of the [community]. Besides all this they had their devotions to attend to, at certain times, both day and night, throughout the year. As for the students, they had to mind their own simple household concerns, and each day when these were finished they had plenty of employment in their studies: for the professors kept them hard at work.

There were also great numbers of schools not held in monasteries, conducted by laymen, some for general learning, such as History, Poetry, Grammar, Latin, Greek, Irish, the Sciences, &c.; and some for teaching and training young men for professions, such as lawyers and doctors. And these schools helped greatly to spread learning, though they were not so well known outside Ireland as the monastic schools.

The Irish professors were so famed for their learning, and the colleges were so excellent, that students came to them from every country of Europe: but more from Great Britain than elsewhere. The Irish were very much pleased to receive these foreign students: and they were so generous that they supplied them with food, gave them the manuscript books they wanted to learn from, and taught them too, all free of charge. Ireland was in those times the most learned country in Europe, so that it was known by the name of the Island of Saints and Scholars.

But the Irish scholars and missionaries did not confine themselves to their own country. Great numbers of them went abroad—to Britain and elsewhere—to teach and to preach the Gospel to the people. The professors from Ireland were held in such estimation that they were employed to teach in most of the schools and colleges of Great Britain and the Continent.

We shall see that the Northern Picts of Scotland were converted by St. Columkille and his monks from Iona (see p. [144]): and a large proportion of the people of England became Christians through the preaching of Irish monks before the arrival of St. Augustine.[17]

The Irish missionaries, who went to the Continent, in their eagerness to spread religion and knowledge, penetrated to all parts of Europe: they even found their way to Iceland. Few people have any idea of the trials and dangers they [encountered]. Most of them were persons in good position, who might have lived in plenty and comfort at home. They knew well, when setting out, that they were leaving country and friends probably for ever: for of those that went, very few ever returned. Once on the Continent, they had to make their way poor and friendless, through people whose language they did not understand, and who were in many places ten times more rude and dangerous in those ages than the inhabitants of these islands: and we know, as a matter of history, that many were killed on the way. Then these earnest men had, of course, to learn the language of the people among whom they took up their abode: for until they did this they had to employ an [interpreter], which was a very troublesome and slow way of preaching. But the noble-hearted missionaries went forth to do their good work; and no labours, hardships, or dangers could turn them from their purpose.