he met their combined forces in the present county of Sligo, between Benbulbin and the sea. A furious battle was delivered in which he was defeated with the loss of three thousand men. It was soon after this battle that Columcille decided to leave Ireland. There is a great deal of evidence that he did so as a kind of penance, either self-imposed or enjoined upon him by St. Molaíse [Moleesha], as Keating says, or by the "synod of the Irish saints," as O'Donnell has it. He had helped to fill all Ireland with arms and bloodshed, and three thousand men had fallen in one battle largely on account of him, and it was not the only appeal to arms which lay upon his conscience.[17] He set sail from his beloved Derry in the year 593, determined, according to popular tradition, to convert as many souls to Christ as had fallen in the battle of Cooldrevna. Amongst the dozen monks of his own order who accompanied him were his two first cousins and his uncle. It was death and breaking of heart for him to leave the land of Erin, and he pathetically expresses his sorrow in his own Irish verses. "Too swiftly my coracle flies on her way, From Derry I mournfully turned her prow, I grieve at the errand which drives me to-day To the Land of the Ravens, to Alba, now. * * * * * How swiftly we travel! there is a grey eye Looks back upon Erin, but it no more Shall see while the stars shall endure in the sky Her women, her men, or her stainless shore. From the plank of the oak where in sorrow I lie, I am straining my sight through the water and wind, And large is the tear of the soft grey eye Looking back on the land that it leaves behind. To Erin alone is my memory given, To Meath and to Munster my wild thoughts flow, To the shores of Moy-linny, the slopes of Loch Leven, And the beautiful land the Ultonians know." He refers distinctly to the penance imposed upon him by St. Moleesha. "To the nobles that gem the bright isle of the Gael Carry this benediction over the sea, And bid them not credit Moleesha's tale, And bid them not credit his words of me. Were it not for the word of Moleesha's mouth At the cross of Ahamlish that sorrowful day, I now should be warding from north and from south Disease and distemper from Erin away." His mind reverts to former scenes of delight-- "How dear to my heart in yon western land Is the thought of Loch Foyle where the cool waves pour, And the bay of Drumcliff on Cúlcinnê's strand, How grand was the slope of its curving shore! * * * * * O bear me my blessing afar to the West, For the heart in my bosom is broken; I fail. Should death of a sudden now pierce my breast I should die of the love that I bear the Gael!"[18]