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LEINSTER 47
to his sanctuary and begged him to found a monastery.
He submitted unwillingly, and let them build him
(still on the slope of the same mountain, Lugduff ) a
beehive cell of stones, or "skellig": and near it they
built an oratory, Tempul-na-Skellig, on a rock pro-
jecting into the lake — now wrecked, for, as Archbishop
Healy writes in his Ancient Schools and
Scholars, " fifty years of tourists in the mountain valley
have caused more ruin to these venerable monuments
than centuries of civil war ".
But there was no room on this cliffy shore, and
Kevin was admonished in a vision to build in the
open space by the outfall of the lower lake. "If it
were God's will," said Kevin, "I would rather remain
until my death here where I have laboured." "But,"
said the angel, "if you dwell where I bid you, many
blessed souls will have their resurrection there and
go with you to the heavenly kingdom." So Kevin
consented to move; and he built the monastery on
which all those churches and towers sprang up that
can be seen or traced to-day. Yet in this city he
did not depart from his austerities, but slept on the
bare ground and lived on herbs and water.
The foundation of the monastery may date from
about 540. Kevin lived on, they say, till 620, and
died surrounded by his disciples, a man of God and a
peacemaker, among the best beloved of Ireland's saints.