He was born on the 7th of December, 521,[2] twenty-nine years after the reputed death of St. Patrick, and four years before that of St. Brigit, at Gartan[3] in Donegal, a wild but beautiful district of which his father was the prince. The reigning monarch of Ireland was his half-uncle, while his mother Ethne was the direct descendant of the royal line of Cáthaoir [Cauheer] Mór, the regnant family of Leinster, and he himself would have had some chance of the reversion of the monarchy had he been minded to press his claims. Reared at Kilmacrenan, near Gartan, the place where the O'Donnells were afterwards inaugurated, he received his first teaching at the hands of St. Finnén or Finnian in his famous school at Moville, for already since Patrick's death Ireland had become dotted with such small colleges. It was here at this early age that his school-fellows christened him Colum-cille, or Colum of the Church, on account of the assiduity with which he sought the holy building. At this period the Christian clergy and the bardic order were the only two educational powers in Ireland, and after leaving St. Finnian, Columcille travelled south into Leinster to a bard called Gemmán[4] with whom he took lessons. From him he went to St. Finnén or Finnian of Clonard. While studying at Clonard it was the custom for each of the students to grind corn in his turn at a quern, but Columcille's Irish life in the Book of Lismore tells us naïvely, in true old Irish spirit, "howbeit an angel from heaven used to grind on behalf of Columcille; that was the honour which the Lord used to render him because of the eminent nobleness of his race." St. Ciaran [Keeran] was at this time a fellow-student with him, and Finnian, says the Irish life, saw one night a vision, "to wit, two moons arose from Clonard, a golden moon and a silver moon. The golden moon went into the north of the island, and Ireland and Scotland gleamed under it. The silver moon went on until it stayed by the Shannon, and Ireland at her centre gleamed." That, says the author, signified "Columcille with the grace of his noble kin and his wisdom, and Ciaran with the refulgence of his virtues and his good deeds." Leaving Clonard behind him, Columcille passed on to yet another school--this time to that of Mobhí at Glasnevin, near Dublin, where there were as many as fifty students at work, living in huts or cells grouped round an oratory, some of whom were famous men in after-time, for they included Cainnech and Comgall and Ciaran. A curious incident is recorded of these three and of Columcille in the Irish life in the Book of Lismore. Columcille was driven from Glasnevin by the approach of the great plague which ravaged the country, and of which his teacher Mobhí died.