_Manual Labour._--It was a maxim in all our primitive Irish monasteries that the monks were to support themselves by the labour of their hands. The mendicant orders, who lived to a great extent on the alms of the faithful, were a later institution, first introduced into Ireland about the year A.D. 1225. Hence, in every monastery a number of the stronger brethren devoted themselves mainly to manual labour, and indeed all, even the scribes as well as the literary and artistic workmen, were required to give some time to manual labour also. In their case it would serve as healthy recreation, while, at the same time it would remind them that all the members of the community were on terms of strict equality, and that no privileged classes were recognised amongst them. Everything that the community needed was produced or procured by themselves. They raised their own corn; they themselves dried and ground and baked it into bread. They had their own dairy; they milked their own cows; they made excellent cheese and butter; for no female was allowed to live amongst them, or even permitted to enter the monastery. They had their own sheep, and their habits were produced from the wool, combed, spun, and woven by themselves. They built their own churches and cells, whether of stone or of timber; they made their own simple furniture and kitchen utensils: they cut and dried their own fuel, both turf and wood; they washed their own habits, about the cleanliness of which, however, they were not always over particular. When a monk died there was no need of an undertaker--his brethren made the grave, and he was simply buried in his habit, with the cowl over his head. No man could say they were idlers, or that they were a burden to the community. They owed nothing to the general community, but the community owed much to them. Everything needed for food, clothing, and shelter they produced themselves--even the very soil of their fields they reclaimed from the woods and the wilderness.