remains. Mochae was about the same age as Benignus, and it is not improbable that he founded his island monastery quite as early as St. Patrick founded the See of Armagh. Patronised as it doubtless was by St. Patrick, and presided over by one of his earliest disciples, Noendrum soon became a celebrated centre of sanctity and learning. Two very remarkable men received their education there--St. Colman of Dromore and St. Finnian of Moville. Of the latter we shall speak later on when we come to give an account of his own celebrated school at the head of Lough Cuan. The life of Colman, however, furnishes us with some interesting particulars concerning Noendrum and its monastic school. Colman, like Mochae, was a native of the territory of Dalaradia, and in his youth was sent, we are told, by his parents to the blessed Caylan, otherwise called Mochae, the Abbot of Noendrum, that he might be trained in learning and virtue. The young man made great progress in his studies, and still more in the practice of all virtue, so that once when he had got his lesson by heart, and asked the holy abbot what he was to do next, the abbot replied: "Break up that rock which is in the way of the brethren when going to matins." Matins were recited before day dawned, and no doubt the rock was an obstacle in the darkness to the brethren when going from their cells to the church. Obedience is the first virtue of a monk, so Colman made the sign of the cross over the rock, and forthwith it split up in pieces. "Now, cast them into the sea," said the abbot, and Colman did so with the help of God's angels; and lo! the fragments were again united together into the great stone on the sea-shore before the monastery, which is still called Colman's Rock. From Noendrum Colman went to St. Ailbe of Emly, to study the Sacred Scriptures. St. Ailbe, as we shall see presently, had even at this early period founded a great school at Emly, and having himself been trained abroad, when he came home, he gave his newly converted countrymen the benefit of his learning. Colman, after his return from the South, again paid a visit to his old preceptor, St. Caylan, or Mochae of Noendrum, which shows that the latter must have been alive at the close of the fifth century. Very friendly relations existed between Noendrum and Candida Casa in Galloway, which was founded by St. Ninian about the year A.D. 398. Ninian himself is said to have visited St. Caylan at Noendrum; and as it is highly probable that Ninian lived until the middle of the fifth century,[139] this is by no means impossible. Other writers have sought to identify St. Ninian of Candida Casa with Nennio, or Monennio, who is said to have founded a church at Cluain-Conaire in Hy Faclain--now Cloncurry, in the co. Kildare. There are, however, grave chronological difficulties against this hypothesis, to which we shall refer hereafter.