Identifier: irelandsancients00heal (find matches)
Title: Ireland's ancient schools and scholars
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Healy, John, Abp. of Tuam, 1841-
Subjects:
Publisher: Dublin : Sealy Ryers & Walker&lt
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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ay,Clonmacnoise was the greatest of our schools in the past, asit is the most interesting of our ruins in the present. How well St. Ciaran chose the site of his monastic city inthose turbulent and lawless days! It reposed in the bosom ofa grassy lawn of fertile meadow land on the eastern bank ofthe Shannon, about ten miles south of Athlone. Just at thispoint the majestic river takes a wide semi-circular sweepfirst to the east and then to the south; presently it widensand deepens into calm repose under the shelter of that grassyrido-e, wbich Ciaran chose as the site of his monastery. Avast expanse of bog lies beyond the river ; and in the time ofSt. Ciaran the country all round about was an impassablemorass to the dast, south, and north of the verdant oasis onwhich he built his little church. So it became necessary toconstruct a causeway through the bog from the monasteivsomewhat on the line of the present road to Athlone. Atthis day the aspect of the place is very desolate and lon«W.
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ST. CIARAN OF CLONMACNOISE. 250 There is nothing to distract the attention of the strangersave the gray ruins, the sweep of the full-bosomed riverstealing silently onwards like time in its flight, and vastflocks of plover and curlew that are now settled on themeadows, and a moment after are circling in flying cloudsaround us. The report of a gun had startled both them andus. It was like a voice in the regions of the dead. St. Ciaran, the founder of Cionmacnoise, is usually calledCiaran Mac In Tsair, that is, the Son of the Carpenter, andsometimes Ciaran the Younger, to distinguish him from St.Ciaran of Saigher, the patron of the diocese of Ossory. Hisfather, Beoit, son of Olcan, though a carpenter by trade,came of high descent. His mother, Darerca, was a daughterof the race that gave its name to the county Kerry. Beoitlived at Larne, in Antrim, but being greatly harassed by theexactions of Ainmire, king of the district, he migrated to theprovince of Connaught, and settled at a place c

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