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Ireland and the Making
of Britain
and later grew into a cluster of stone buildings, with
some structures built of enduring woods. The fame of its
learning brought to it multitudes of scholars, including
laymen, clerics, abbots and bishops. From it went forth
the group of remarkable men known as the "Twelve
Apostles of Erin." In the office of St. Finnian, the
founder,
thousand. For centuries the school was renowned for
its students are said to have numbered three
scriptural learning. From it, says Ussher, "scholars came
out in as great numbers as Greeks from the side of the
horse of Troy."
Clonfert rivaled Clonard in fame and in the number of
its students. It was an extremely wealthy foundation,
endowed with large estates of fertile land, so that its later
bishops on appointment paid into the papal treasury large
sums of gold. We have an almost complete list of its
bishops and abbots, one of whom was Cummian, whose
celebrated letter on the Paschal controversy, addrest to
lona early in the seventh century, remarkable for its eru-
dition, urbanity, and modesty, sheds a luminous ray on
the liberal culture dispensed in these great seats of learning.
The city of Brendan, once peopled by multitudes
of eager students, noted as the training ground of the
greatest of preceptors, is to-day a vast solitude.
The site of Clonmacnois is almost in the center of Ire-
land. This famous institution possest rich lands and
Prince Diarmuid, one of the sons of Cerbaill, the highking,
whom he succeeded as Diarmuid II, made it the
so that it became en-
particular object of his munificence,
dowed as a seminary for the whole nation. Both Clon-
macnois and Clonfert cultivated Irish learning with
especial distinction, so that to the labor of their schools
we are indebted for the leading authentic records of
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