Moville, or Movilla, is at present the name of a townland less than a mile to the north-east of Newtownards, at the head of Strangford Lough, in the county Down. This district was in ancient times famous for its great religious establishments. Bangor, to which we shall refer presently, is not quite five miles due north of Moville. Newtownards, as its name implies, is a much more modern place, but it was the seat of a great Dominican Priory almost since the first advent of the Friar Preachers to Ireland. Comber, a few miles to the west at the head of Strangford Lough, contained both a Cistercian and an Augustinian Monastery. Abbey Grey, on the opposite or eastern shore of the Lough, had another great Cistercian house, founded by John de Courcy, the conqueror, and, we must add, the plunderer of Ulster. Further south, but on the western shore of the same Lough, anciently called Lough Cuan, were the Abbey of Inch, the famous Church of Saul, in which St. Patrick died, and the Church of Downpatrick, in which he was buried with SS. Brigid and Columcille. And in one of the islands in the same Strangford Lough, now called Island Mahee, quite close to the western shore, was that ancient monastery and school of Noendrum, of which we have already spoken. Religious men from the beginning loved to build their houses and churches in view of this beautiful sheet of water, with its myriad islands and fertile shores, bounded in the distance by swelling uplands, that lend a charming variety to this rich and populous and highly cultivated county. Of the boyhood and education of St. Finnian little is known with certainty. He belonged to the noble family of the Dalfiatach, who seem to have been dynasts of the district to the north of this great inlet of the sea, which they called Lough Cuan. He was probably born some years before the beginning of the sixth century. His first teacher was St. Colman, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, who at that time seems to have been himself under the guidance and instruction of St. Mochae in the Island of Noendrum, but known at present as Island Mahee, in Strangford Lough. Colman became a favourite pupil of Mochae, who, when he himself was growing old, seems to have entrusted him with the care of the younger boys who had come to the island seminary to be trained up by these great masters in learning and piety. It is said that, on one occasion St. Colman was going to chastise the young Finnian for some real or imaginary fault, when he felt his hand invisibly restrained by an angel, and he thereupon declared that he was unworthy to be entrusted with the care of so holy a youth, and that henceforward he would resign that office, so far as Finnian was concerned, to St. Mochae himself. This story at least shows that the young boy made great progress in virtue and wisdom under the guidance of both these holy men on the Island of Noendrum.