This appears to have led, towards the end of his life, to the adoption of a very peculiar sort of Collegiate Church. It consisted in a group of seven bishops placed together in one church; and they were brought closer to the tribal system based on the family which prevailed in Ireland, by these bishops being usually seven brothers selected from one family in the tribe. We see the germs of something of the kind in Tirechan’s Annotations, where it is said that towards the end of his career ‘Patrick passed the Shannon three times, and completed seven years in the western quarter, and came from the plain of Tochuir to Dulo Ocheni, and founded seven churches there.’ And again, ‘The seven sons of Doath—that is Cluain, Findglais and Imsruth, Culcais, Deruthmar, Culcais and Cennlocho—faithfully made offerings to God and Saint Patrick.’[50] But Angus the Culdee in his Litany gives us a list of no fewer than one hundred and fifty-three groups of seven bishops in the same church, all of whom he invokes. A few of these we can identify sufficiently to show that they usually consisted of seven brothers living together in one church, and that they belong to this period. For instance, he invokes ‘the seven bishops of _Tulach na’n Epscop_,’ or Tulach of the Bishops; and we find in the old Irish Life of St. Bridget, who died in 525, that on one occasion at Tealagh, in the west of Leinster, ‘pious nobles, _i.e._ seven bishops, were her guests.’[51] Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops of Drom Arbelaig;’ and in the Irish Calendar on 15th January we have ‘seven bishops, sons of Finn, _alias_ Fincrettan of Druimairbealagh.’ Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops in Tamhnach;’ and in the Calendars on 21st July we have this notice: ‘The seven bishops of Tamhnach Buadha, and we find seven bishops, the sons of one father, and their names and history among the race of Fiacha Suighdhe, son of Feidhlimidh Reachtmhar, son of Tuathal Teachtmhar.’ Again he invokes ‘the seven bishops of Cluan Emain;’ and we are told in the Life of Saint Forannan that, after the Council of Drumceatt Columba was met by a large concourse of ecclesiastics, among whom the descendants of Cennaine, the aunt of St. Bridget, are alone enumerated, and among these are ‘the seven bishops of Cluain-Hemain,’ now Clonown, near Athlone, and they are represented in the Genealogy of the Saints in the Book of Lecan as seven brethren, the sons of the same mother.[52] Such appear to be in the main the characteristics of the early Irish Church in this the first period of its history; and we must now turn to Scotland to see to what extent they are reflected there. [Sidenote: Church of the southern Picts.] The dark interval of a century between the death of Ninian and the coming of Columba when we find ourselves treading on firm ground, is thus filled up by Fordun:—