Assuming that the three orders of the saints pictured the leading characteristics of three periods of the Irish Church, there can be no question that the great feature of the second period was its monastic character. The principal points of difference in the constitution of the Church represented by the first two orders were these:—The first order ‘was of Catholic saints,’ the second ‘of Catholic presbyters.’ In the first they are said to have been ‘all bishops, founders of Churches’; in the second there were ‘few bishops and many presbyters, in number 300.’ In the first ‘they had one head, Christ, and one chief, Patricius’; in the second ‘they had one head, our Lord,’ but no chief. In the first ‘they observed one mass, one celebration’; in the second ‘they celebrated different masses, and had different rules.’ In the first ‘they excluded from the churches neither laymen nor women’; in the second ‘they refused the services of women, separating them from the monasteries.’^[80] The first, as we have said, exhibits a secular clergy founding churches; the second a clergy observing rules and founding monasteries. There were no doubt monasteries in the earlier church, and, as St. Patrick tells us in his Confession, ‘sons of the Scots and daughters of the princes are seen to be monks and virgins;’ but these were accidental features in a church essentially secular, and the monasteries were probably of the earliest type, when the monks were laymen, while the clergy, in common with the church at that period, consisted of bishops with their presbyters and deacons; but in the second period the entire church appears to have been monastic, and her whole clergy embraced within the fold of the monastic rule.

Bede well expresses this when, in describing one of her offshoots at Lindisfarne, he says, ‘All the presbyters, with the deacons, cantors, lectors, and the other ecclesiastical orders, along with the bishop himself, were subject in all things to the monastic rule.’^[81] The Irish Church was therefore at this period a monastic church in the fullest sense of the term, and the inevitable effect of this was materially to influence the relation between the two grades of bishops and presbyters, both as to position and as to numbers. In order to estimate rightly the nature of this change, it is necessary to keep in view the distinction between the power of mission and that of orders. The former is the source of jurisdiction, and the latter of the functions of the episcopate. When the two are united, we are presented with a diocesan episcopacy; but the union is not essential. A monastic church requires the exercise of episcopal functions within her as much as any other church, and for that purpose possesses within her the superior grade of the bishop according to canonical rule;^[82] but when it became customary for the abbot of the monastery as well as several of the brethren to receive the ordination of the priesthood, for the purpose of performing the religious rites within the monastery, the tendency of all monasteries within a church was to encroach upon the functions of the secular clergy, and not only to claim exemption from the episcopal jurisdiction, but even to have within themselves a resident bishop for the exercise of episcopal functions within the monastery, to whose abbot he was subject as being under the monastic rule.^[83] The idea of transferring monachism entirely to the clergy of a particular district was not absolutely unknown in the Western Church.^[84] But at this period it was adopted by the Irish Church in its entirety; and when the entire church became monastic, the whole episcopate was necessarily in this position. There was nothing derogatory to the power of episcopal orders, nothing to reduce the bishops, as a superior grade, below or even to the level of the presbyters; but the mission, and the jurisdiction of which it is the source, were not in the bishop, but in the monastery, and that jurisdiction was necessarily exercised through the abbot as its monastic head. There was episcopacy in the church, but it was not diocesan episcopacy. Where the abbot, as was occasionally the case, was in episcopal orders, the anomaly did not exist. But the presbyters greatly outnumbered the bishops, and the abbot in general retained his presbyterian orders only.

When this was the case, the bishop appears as a separate member of the community, but ‘the presbyter-abbot was the more important functionary.’ Bede, the most observant as he is the most candid of historians, remarked this when he says that Iona ‘was wont to have always as ruler a presbyter-abbot, to whose jurisdiction the whole province and even the bishops themselves were, by an unusual arrangement, bound to submit;’^[85] and again, that ‘the monastery in Iona (not the abbot but the monastery) for a long time held the pre-eminence over almost all those of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts, and had the direction of their people.’^[86] It was this inversion of the jurisdiction, placing the bishop under that of the monastery, which Bede pronounced to be an unusual order of things. The episcopate was in fact in the Monastic Church of Ireland a personal and not an official dignity; and we find at a later period that inferior functionaries of the monastery, as the scribe and even the anchorite, appear to have united the functions of a bishop with their proper duties.^[87]

Whence then did the Irish Church at this period derive its monastic character? Monasticism, as we know, took its rise in the East; but when Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, took refuge in Rome from the persecution of the Arians in the year 341, told of the life of the monks in the east, and wrote a Life of St. Anthony, the monastic life became at once popular in the west, and all Rome became filled with monasteries. The term religio, or ‘religion,’ was given to the monastic institutions, and that of ‘religious’ to all who followed a monastic rule, in contradistinction to that of ‘secular,’ which was applied to the clergy whose lives were regulated merely by the general law of the Church. From Italy it was introduced into Gaul, and it was finally established as an institution in that Church by Martin, monk and afterwards bishop, who founded the monastery of Ligugé, the most ancient monastery in Gaul, at the gates of Poitiers, in 361; and afterwards, when he became bishop of Tours in 372, a monastery near that city, which bore the name of ‘Majus Monasterium,’ or Marmoutier; and this monastery became the centre of monastic life in Gaul.^[88]

From Martin of Tours the monastic influence reached the Irish Church through two different channels, and became the means of infusing a new life into that Church, imparting to it a character which harmonised better with the tribal organisation of the social system and exhibited itself in that marvellous burst of energy which not only filled Ireland with monasteries, but was carried by its monkish missionaries across the sea to Britain and the Continent. The legend which connects Patrick with Martin, narrating that Conchessa, Patrick’s mother, was his niece, and that Patrick went to Martin at the age of twenty-five, and after four years’ instruction received from him the monastic habit, must be abandoned as irreconcilable with the chronology of St. Patrick’s life, and as introduced at a later period into his acts, as we shall afterwards see. That, however, which connects Ninian of Whithern with Martin is more trustworthy. He undoubtedly went to Rome during the lifetime of Martin, where, according to Bede, he was trained in the faith and mysteries of religion. He is said, on his return, to have visited that saint at Tours, and obtained from him masons for the purpose of building a church after the Roman manner, which, says Bede, was called Candida Casa, and dedicated to St. Martin.

This monastery, under the name of the ‘Magnum Monasterium,’ or monastery of Rosnat, became known as a great seminary of secular and religious instruction. In the legend of St. Cairnech we find it mentioned as ‘the house of Martain,’ and as ‘the monastery of Cairnech.’ He was the son of Sarran, king of the Britons, by Bobona, daughter of Loarn son of Erc, who had another daughter, Erca, mother of Murcertach, afterwards king of Ireland. As Murcertach is said in the legend to have been at that time with the king of Britain learning military science, the events there narrated must be placed before the date of the great battle of Ocha in 478, which was fought by Lughaidh, who then became king of Ireland, and by Murcertach mac Erca, and established the throne of Ireland in the line of the northern Hy Niall. The legend adds that ‘Cairnech went to Erin before him, and became the first bishop of the clan Niall and of Teamhar, or Tara, and he was the first martyr and the first monk of Erin, and the first Brehon of the men of Erin also.’^[89] In this legend the introduction of monachism into Ireland is attributed to Cairnech, who had been bishop and abbot of the monastery or house of Martin, or in other words, of Candida Casa; and we find soon after several of the saints, mentioned as belonging to this second order, resorting thither for the purpose of being instructed and trained in the monastic life. We learn from the acts of Tighernac of Clones and of Eugenius of Ardstraw, who were both natives of Leinster, but connected with Ulster families on the mother’s side, that, with a number of others of both sexes, they had been carried off when boys by pirates and brought to Britain, where they were sent by the king, at the queen’s intercession, to a holy man, called in the Life of Tighernac, ‘Monennus,’ and in that of Eugenius, ‘Nennio, called also Mancennus’ and ‘Manchenius,’ and trained by him in his monastery of Rosnat, which is also called alba, or ‘white.’^[90] When set at liberty and enabled to return to their own country, they both received episcopal orders; and Tighernac founded the monastery of Galloon in Lough Erne, and afterwards that of Cluain-eois or Clones in Monaghan; while Eugenius founded Ardstrath, now Ardstraw, near Derry. In the Acts of S. Enda of Aran, too, we are told that, when a youth, he was sent by his sister to Britain, to the monastery of Rosnat, where he became the humble disciple of Mancenus, the ‘magister’ of that monastery.^[91] He afterwards founded in one of the Aran islands, on the west coast of Ireland, a monastery containing one hundred and fifty monks, of which he was the presbyter-abbot. Saint Monenna too sends one of her family, named Brignat, to the British island, to the monastery of Rosnat, in order that she might be trained in the rules of monastic life, after which she returns to Ireland.^[92] Again we are told in the Acts of St. Finnian or Finbarr, of ‘Maghbile,’ or Moyville, that he went as a boy to St. Caelan, abbot of Noendrum, who placed him under the care of a most holy bishop called Nennio, who had come in a ship with some of his people to the harbour of the monastery; and by him he was taken to his own monastery, termed the ‘Magnum Monasterium,’ and there trained for several years in the rules and institutions of monastic life.^[93] In another Life, in which he is identified with St. Fridean of Lucca, his master’s name is called Mugentius, and his monastery ‘Candida.’^[94] Finally, in the preface to the Hymn or Prayer of Mugint, we are told that ‘Mugint made this hymn in Futerna. The cause was this:—Finnen of Maghbile went to Mugint for instruction, and Rioc, and Talmach, and several others with him.’^[95] Finnian, having received episcopal orders, afterwards founded the monastery of Magh Bile or Moyville, in the county of Down.

There can be little question that the monastery of Rosnat, called also ‘Alba’ and ‘Candida’ and ‘Futerna,’ and known as the ‘Magnum Monasterium,’ could have been no other than the monastery of Candida Casa, known to the Angles as Whithern, of which ‘Futerna’ is the Irish equivalent. The future bishops and abbots who were trained there were all more or less connected with Ulster; the monasteries founded by them were in the north of Ireland; and Finnian, the latest of them, was of the race of Dal Fiatach, occupying the districts of Down and part of Antrim, separated by the Irish Channel from Galloway. They would naturally resort to the great school of monastic life established there by Ninian in honour of St. Martin of Tours, to be trained in the rules. Whether Mancenus, or Manchenius, and Mugint were the same person, or the latter the successor of the former, it is difficult to say. Both appear to have borne the name of Nennio; but this appellation may have been applied to the abbots of Candida Casa as the successors of the founder Ninian. The former name of Manchenius is obviously the Irish name Manchan; and he is probably celebrated in the Litany of Angus the Culdee, when he invokes ‘thrice fifty disciples, with Manchan the master.’^[96]

While this monastic life, which Ireland thus received from Saint Ninian’s monastery in Galloway, affected mainly the north of Ireland, the second great channel through which monachism reached Ireland exercised a powerful and all-pervading influence on her central and southern districts. In the year 394 Tours was made the capital or civil metropolis of the province of Lugdunensis Tertia, and became a metropolitan city. Her ecclesiastical jurisdiction extended over the provinces now called Bretagne, Maine, and Anjou, with a part of Touraine; and Saint Martin became the metropolitan bishop. The monachism introduced into Gaul and fostered by him spread at once into Bretagne, where the monasteries of Landouart and Landevenech were founded;^[97] and from thence it passed into Wales. In the Catalogue of the Saints we are told that those of the second or monastic order ‘received a mass from bishop David, and Gillas and Docus, the Britons.’ Bishop David is of course the celebrated Saint David who founded the church of Cillemuine, or Menevia, now St. David’s. Gillas is no other than the historian Gildas;^[98] and by Docus is meant Saint Cadoc, who founded the great monastery of Nantgarvan, or Llancarvan, in South Wales, where Gildas was also associated with him. From these three eminent fathers of the monastic church of Wales the monastic institution also passed into Ireland through Finnian of Clonard. Finnian was of the race in Ireland termed Cruithnigh, or Picts; and we are told in his Acts, that after having been instructed in his youth by Fortchern of Trim and Caiman of Dairinis, an island in the bay of Wexford, he, in his thirtieth year, crossed the Irish Channel to the city of Kilmuine, where he found the three holy men, David and Cathmael^[99] and Gildas, and became their disciple. After remaining thirty years in Britain, partly in the monastery of St. David and partly in other monasteries in Wales, he returned to Ireland followed by several of the ‘religious’ Britons, ‘to gather together a people acceptable to the Lord.’

He eventually founded the great monastery of Cluain-Erard, or Clonard, in Meath, which is said to have contained no fewer than three thousand monks, and which became a great training school in the monastic life, whence proceeded the most eminent founders of the Irish monasteries.^[100] In an Irish Life of Finnian quoted by Dr. Todd in his Life of Saint Patrick, we are told, that ‘after this a desire seized Finnian to go to Rome when he had completed his education. But an angel of God came to him, and said unto him, “What“What would be given to thee at Rome shall be given to thee here. Arise and renew sound doctrine and faith in Ireland after Patrick.”’Patrick.”’^[101] And in the Office of Finnian it is said that, ‘when he was meditating a pilgrimage to Rome, he was persuaded by an angel to return to Ireland, to restore the faith, which had fallen into neglect after the death of Saint Patrick.’^[102] These expressions all point to an effete and decaying church restored through the medium of Finnian and his monastic school of Clonard, and to a great revival and spread of Christianity through a new and living organisation based upon the monastic institution.

This great work was carried out by twelve of his principal disciples, who filled the land with monasteries, and, as leaders of the new monastic church, became known as the twelve apostles of Ireland. In the Martyrology of Donegal Finnian is well described as ‘a doctor of wisdom and a tutor of the saints of Ireland in his time; for he it was that had three thousand saints at one school at Cluain Eraird, as is evident in his life; and it was out of them the twelve apostles of Erin were chosen;’ and it is added, ‘A very ancient vellum-book, in which are contained the Martyrology of Maelruain of Tamhlacht, and the list of the saints of the same name, states that Finnian was in his habits and life like unto Paul the apostle.’^[103] Of these twelve apostles the earliest were the two Ciarans—Ciaran who founded the monastery of Saighir in Munster, and Ciaran, called Mac-an-tsaor, or ‘the son of the artificer,’ who founded, in 548, the more celebrated monastery of Clonmacnois in King’s County; Columba, son of Crimthan, a native of Leinster, who founded that of Tirrdaglas in the same year; Mobhi Clairenach, who founded the monastery of Glais-Naoidhen in Fingall; and Ninnidh, whose monastery was in an island in Lough Erne called Inismacsaint. Somewhat later were Brendan of Birr; the other Brendan, who became celebrated for his seven years’ voyage in search of the land of promise, and founded the monastery of Clonfert, where, like his master Finnian, he ruled as presbyter-abbot over three thousand monks; and Laisren or Molaisse of Devenish. Still later were Ruadhan of Lothra, Senell of Cluaininnis and Cainnech of Achabo, who lived till the end of the century. Of these, Brendan of Birr and Cainnech of Achabo were, like their master, of Pictish descent.

The number of the twelve apostles was made up by one who was destined to become more celebrated, and to leave a more extended and permanent impression on the church than any of the others. This was a disciple termed Colum or in Latin, Columba. By paternal descent he was a scion of the royal house of the northern Hy Neill. His father, Fedhlimidh, belonged to that tribe of them termed the Cinel Conaill from Conall Gulban, one of the eight sons of Niall, from whom they were descended, and was connected in the female line with the kings of Dalriada. Columba was born on the 7th December 521,^[104] and was baptized under that name by the presbyter Cruithnechan, but became soon known as Columcille or ‘Columba of the church,’ in consequence of the frequency of his attendance, when a child, at the church of Tulach-Dubhglaise, now Temple Douglas, near the place of his birth.^[105] When he had attained a proper age he became a pupil of Finnian, or Finbarr, of Maghbile, where he was ordained a deacon.^[106] He then, while yet a deacon, placed himself under the instruction of an aged bard called Gemman, by whom no doubt was fostered his taste for poetry, and that regard for the bardic order instilled, which led to their subsequently obtaining his warm support.^[107] Thus far the account of his youth is supported by Adamnan; but we must now trust to the ancient Irish Life alone for the further particulars of his early training. Leaving Gemman, he became a disciple of Finnian of Clonard, under whom he completed his training, and formed one of that band known as the twelve apostles of Ireland. He then joined Mobhi Clairenach, one of the number, at his monastery of Glaisnaoidhen, where he found Ciaran and Cainnech, who had been his fellow-disciples, and a third, Comgall, who belonged, like Ciaran and Cainnech, to the race of the Irish Picts, and was destined to become equally celebrated as a founder of monastic institutions. Columba thus united in himself the training of both monastic schools—that of Finnian of Maghbile, derived from the great monastery of Candida Casa, and that of his namesake of Clonard, derived from David, Gildas, and Cadoc of Wales. On leaving Mobhi, he probably obtained priest’s orders, having attained the age of twenty-five years; but the fact is not recorded in the Irish Life.^[108] |A.D. 545. Founds the monastery of Derry.|We are told, however, that immediately after the death of Mobhi, who died in 545, Columba founded the church of Derry. The account of it given in the old Irish Life will furnish a good illustration of how these monasteries were founded. ‘Columcille then went to Daire, that is, to the royal fort of Aedh, son of Ainmire, who was king of Erin at that time. The king offered the fort to Columcille; but he refused it, because of Mobhi’s command. On his coming out of the fort, however, he met two of Mobhi’s people bringing him Mobhi’s girdle, with his consent that Columcille should accept a grant of territory, Mobhi having died. Columcille then settled in the fort of Aedh, and founded a church there.’ Ainmire, the father of Aedh, and Columba were cousins-german, the sons of brothers. The grant of the royal fort to him as a commencement to his ecclesiastical career was therefore not unnatural. After this he is said to have founded the church of Raphoe in Donegal, and ten years after the foundation of Daire he founded at Dair-Mag, now Durrow, in the diocese of Meath, another church, which is called in the Irish Life a ‘Recles’ or monastery. It is termed by Bede a noble monastery in Ireland, which, from the profusion of oak-trees, is called in the Scottish language Dearmach, that is, the plain of oaks.^[109] Besides these, the first and last of which were his principal monasteries in Ireland, he is said in the Irish Life to have founded many others, as Cennanus, or Kells, in the north-west of the county of Meath, which the Irish Life tells us was a fort of Diarmada, son of Cerbaill, and ‘Columcille marked out the city in extent as it now is, and blessed it all, and said that it would become the most illustrious possession he should have in the land’—a prophecy fulfilled after two centuries had elapsed from his death; also Clonmore in the county of Louth; Rechra, now Lambay, an island off the coast of the county of Dublin; Swords, known as Sord-Choluimchille, in the county of Dublin; Drumcliffe, a little to the north of Sligo; Drumcolumb in the county of Sligo; Moone in the county of Kildare; Eas mic n Eirc, or Assylyn, near the town of Boyle; Easruadh, on the river Erne in Tyrconell; Torach, or Tory island, off the coast of Donegal; and others not mentioned in the Life.^[110]