Note 124 — Chapter II · THE MONASTIC CHURCH IN IRELAND.

Ib., p. 442. See description of Inis macsaint, an island in Lough Erne, where Saint Ninnidh, one of the twelve apostles of Ireland, founded a monastery. ‘To the west and north of the church extend mounds of earth, which indicate the forms and positions of the ancient community dwellings. There was a rampart of mixed earth and stones, and this probably formed a rath, or cashel.’—O’Hanlon’s Lives of the Saints, vol. i. p. 322. The following is a good description of a small monastery:—Erat enim habitatio eorum sparsa. Tamen unanimiter illorum conversatio in spe, fide et charitate fundata erat. Una refectio, ad opus Dei perficiendum una ecclesia est. Nihil aliud cibi ministrabatur illis, nisi poma et nuces atque radices et cetera genera herbarum. Fratres, post completorium, in singulis cellulis usque ad gallorum cantus seu campanæ pulsum pernoctabant.—Acta S. Brendani, p. 86.