It is certain, as we have seen, that there were in Ireland from the very first conversion of the people both monks and nuns, and therefore monasteries also. But the founders of these religious houses could give very little time to regulate their constitution and government, much less to undertake the management of such institutions themselves. St. Patrick and his fellow labourers were 'the founders of churches' rather than of monasteries--their work was to preach, to ordain, to baptize. It was the next generation of monks that undertook to found monasteries properly so called; men who themselves were trained in religious houses elsewhere, and thus becoming acquainted with religious life and discipline were fitted to found similar institutions at home. The earliest of these monasteries properly so called date from the beginning of the sixth century; and perhaps the two most celebrated fathers of Irish monastic life, in this sense of the word, were St. Enda of Aran, and St. Finnian of Clonard. We shall first speak of St. Enda. Aran, under St. Enda, may be called the novitiate of the Irish saints of the Second Order, as Clonard may be considered their college; and hence we shall trace as carefully as we can the history of these two famous foundations of sanctity and learning, to which the ancient Church of Ireland owed so much. St. Enda, or Endeus, was of royal blood--one of "the sons of the Kings of the Scots," who embraced the monastic state even during the lifetime of St. Patrick himself. His father, Conall Derg, was king of Oriel--a wide territory extending from Lough Erne to the sea at Dundalk, and nearly conterminous with the modern diocese of Clogher. His mother was Evin (Aebhfhinn) grand-daughter of Ronan, king of the Ards of Down. He had a sister called Fanchea, a devout maiden, who is said by some to have received the veil from the hands of St. Patrick, and to whom her brother owed his conversion to the religious life. The young prince succeeded his father as chieftain of the men of Oriel, and although high-minded and pure-hearted, he took a chieftain's share in the wild work of mutual pillage and slaughter to which these Irish chieftains were always too much prone. His pious sister had founded a convent of nuns at a place called Ross Oirthir, which is in all probability identical with the old church and cemetery of Rossory, in the parish of the same name by the shores of the River Erne, on its left bank near Enniskillen, and not far from the famous Franciscan Abbey of Lisgoole. The old church has disappeared with the progress of modern 'improvements;' but the home of the dead is still untouched. Here St. Fanchea had her oratory and nunnery, when it happened that her brother led the clansmen past the convent to attack their enemies. Shortly after a wild song of joy told the terrified maidens that they were returning home triumphant, having conquered their foes and slain the leader.