Page 75 - Demo

Chapter three 75
I dreamt a dream, a dazzling dream, of a green isle far away,
Where the glowing west to the ocean’s breast calleth the dying day;
And that island green was as fair a scene as ever man’s eye did see,
With its chieftains bold, and its temples old, and its homes and its altars free!
No foreign foe did that green isle know-no stranger band it bore,
Save the merchant train from sunny Spain and from Africa’s golden shore!
And the young man’s heart would fondly start, and the old man’s eye woulod smile, As their thoughts would roam o’er the ocean foam to that lone and “holy isle”!
(A Dream-By Denis Florence McCarthy)
As mentioned, shortly after the death of St. Patrick monasteries began to be founded in greater numbers and with greater vigour throughout the country. Furthermore, as already stated the establishment of monasteries with their attached schools had already begun be- fore Patrick’s death and it is documented that he himself had done much to bring about this development. Because of the political division of the country, if you recall, the country was divided into tuatha, a system which favoured this development, and also because local princes made gifts of land in order to help establish and maintain monasteries in their par- ticular districts, in no time at all there were several hundred of these institutions, large and small, all over the country. However, the greatest impulse of all, initially, came from abroad, and as the monasteries of Saints Ninian, Cadoc, Gildas and David in Britain were already renowned, they aforded example and training in monastic life for early Irish abbots.
St Eanna, in English, St Enda, who founded a famous monastery on the Aran Islands about 530AD received his early training in St Ninian’s monastery in Galloway, Scotland. The fame of the Aran foundation was later eclipsed by that of the monastery founded in 549 by St Finnian at Cluain Ioráird, Clonard, in county Meath, which lourished until the 13th century and which at one time had upwards of 3,000 students attending its school. Unsurprisingly, St Enda and Finnian are now known as ‘the fathers of Irish monasticism.’
St Finnian himself was strongly inluenced by the example of Cadoc and Gildas, and the list of his disciples at Clonard includes such illustrious names as Ciaran, he of Clon- macnoise, a much venerated place which lies on the banks of the river Shannon in county Ofaly; Columcille of Derry and the celebrated Iona in Scotland; Brendan of Clonfert in county Galway, known as ‘the navigator’; Brendan of Birr in county Ofaly; Colman of Ter- ryglass in county Tipperary; Mobi of Glasnevin in Dublin; Canice of Kilkenny, to name but