Yet we shall be quite wrong if we imagine an era of peace and security following the epoch of the first great Messenger. Nothing is further from the truth. The old tribal strife continued for long centuries; the instincts which inspired it are, even now, not quite outworn. Chief continued to war against chief, province against province, tribe against tribe, even among the fervent converts of the first teachers. Saint Brigid is one of the great figures in the epoch immediately succeeding the first coming of the Word. She was the foundress of a school of religious teaching for women at Kildare, or Killdara, "The Church of the Oak-woods," whose name still records her work. Her work, her genius, her power, the immense spiritual influence for good which flowed from her, entitle her to be remembered with the women of apostolic times, who devoted their whole lives to the service of the divine. We have seen the esteem in which women were always held in Ireland. St. Brigid and those who followed in her steps gave effect to that high estimation, and turned it to a more spiritual quality, so that now, as in all past centuries, the ideal of womanly purity is higher in Ireland than in any country in the world. This great soul departed from earthly life in the year 525, a generation after the death of the first Messenger. To show how the old order continued with the new, we may record the words of the Chronicler for the following year: "526: The battle of Eiblinne, by Muirceartac son of Erc; the battle of Mag-Ailbe; the battle of Almain; the battle of Ceann-eic; the plundering of the Cliacs; and the battle of Eidne against the men of Connacht." Three of these battles were fought at no great distance from St. Brigid's Convent. The mediaeval Chronicler quotes the old Annalist for the following year: "The king, the son of Erc, returned to the side of the descendants of Nial. Blood reached the girdle in each plain. The exterior territories were enriched. Seventeen times nine chariots he brought, and long shall it be remembered. He bore away the hostages of the Ui-Neill with the hostages of the plain of Munster." Ten years later we find the two sons of this same king, Muirceartac son of Erc, by name Fergus and Domnall, fighting under the shadow of Knocknarea mountain against Eogan Bel the king of Connacht; the ancient Annalist, doubtless contemporary with the events recorded, thus commemorated the battle in verse: "The battle of the Ui-Fiacrac was fought with the fury of edged weapons against Bel; "The kine of the enemy roared with the javelins, the battle was spread out at Crinder; "The River of Shells bore to the great sea the blood of men with their flesh; "They carried many trophies across Eaba, together with the head of Eogan Bel."