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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
Easter controversy) it contained an exemplary society
of monks, who were gathered there from the province of
the English, and lived by the labor of their hands, after
the example of the venerable fathers under a rule and a
canonical abbot in much continency and singleness of
life. 1
Meanwhile the good work was going on in other parts
of Ireland. At the date of the pestilence of 664, says
Bede, "many of the nobility and of the lower ranks of
the English nation were there (in Ireland) at that time,
who, in the days of Bishops Finan and Colman, forsak-
ing their native isle, retired thither, either for the sake
of divine studies or of a more continent life; and some
of them presently devoted themselves to the monastic
life, others chose rather to apply themselves to study,
going
about from one master's cell to another. The
Irish willingly received them all and took care to supply
them with food as also to furnish them with books
2
to read and their teaching gratis."
These words are on many grounds well worthy of
meditation by Englishmen.
iHlst. Eccl. IV. IV.
2 Hist. Eccl. Ill, XXVII, Giles, one of the first translators of Bede, appends
the following curious note to this revealing passage. "The reader,
who has heard much of the early civilization of Ireland, will remember that
the description given in the text applied to a period no earlier than the
seventh century" (Bede, Eccl. Hist., p. 163).