It is likely that the nearness of warrior tribes in Clare may account for the number and the strength of these stone fortresses; the island folk, Firbolgs or whoever they were, would not have so ensconced themselves without grim necessity for the labour. Yet all this is conjectural. What lies well within the bounds of historic knowledge is the Christian history of Aran--_Ara na naomh_, Aran of the Saints, not rashly so entitled. Enda, the first founder of the famous monastic settlement, was a king's son when St. Patrick came to Ireland. His father ruled the kingdom of Oriel, the southern tract of Ulster, reaching across Cavan and Monaghan. Enda's sister took the veil from the hands of Patrick, and she it was, according to legend, who turned her brother from his career as a prince and a warrior. He underwent long training in Louth and over the seas in Britain before he returned to Oriel; but there he found no peace. He wanted solitude, and he begged the islands of Aran from the King of Munster. And, if tradition be accurate, he made his way to them miraculously wafted on a great boat-shaped stone which lies till this day on the shore at Killeany, _Cill Eadna_, Enda's Church. [Illustration: WRACK-GATHERING ON THE WEST COAST] The fame of his settlement spread rapidly, for the missionary period was now being succeeded by an enthusiasm for the contemplative life; and all the great saints of the sixth century came to Aran and were his disciples. St. Brendan the Navigator came there, already prospecting his journey to the unknown land of the west; Columbkille, prince of Tirconnell, the apostle of Scotland, came thither, subduing his proud and fierce temper; and there, too, was nurtured Ciaran, the founder of Clonmacnoise, best loved of Irish saints. All these men were not only centres of piety, but lamps and torches of learning in a dark age: only scholars can estimate what it meant to civilization that this home of studious thought should be maintained outside the weltering chaos of Rome's disruption when sheer barbarism threatened to engulf the world. There are many ancient churches on Aran: seven or eight, says Archbishop Healy, in the single town-land of Killeany, and one called after Saint Benen is virtually intact and may date from the sixth century. But the most interesting of all, _Teglach Eadna_, St. Enda's oratory, is a mere ruin: though outside of it pious islanders can show you the _leac_, or flagstone, under which the saint lies buried. In such places tradition passes from father to son unbroken, with a fidelity that has often been verified; and there is much reputable evidence which I would less readily believe.