Notwithstanding the facilities afforded by the numerous lay and monastic schools the great body of the people were probably neither able to read or write, yet they were not uneducated. They had an education of another kind, reciting poetry, historical tales, and legends, or listening to recitation in which all took delight. In every hamlet there was one or more amateur reciters. This practice of listening to the recitation of stories and poems was then as general as the reading of newspapers and story-books is at the present day.[215] Anyone acquainted with the social life of the Irish-speaking peasantry even in modern Ireland and has listened to a story told, or poem recited, by a _seanchaidhe_ (raconteur) will realise that this was true education, a real exercise for the intellect and a refined source of enjoyment. Taking education then in the broad sense we see that the great body of the Irish people in these early times were really educated. EDUCATION OF WOMEN: We have ample evidence that education in ancient Ireland was not confined to men. As we have already seen, the Brehon Laws made provision for the education of girls as well as for that of boys. In a convent established by St. Brigid (d. 525 A.D.) at Kildare we are told that St. Mel was employed to instruct herself and her nurse,[216] and the history of that school would lead us to infer that it compared not unfavourably with some of the great monastic schools. St. Brendan of Clonfert (d. 577 A.D.) when a child about one year old was placed in fosterage in the convent of St. Ita at Killeedy, Co. Limerick, where he remained for five years. This young saint always looked upon St. Ita as his foster mother and often had listened to her counsels.[217] On one occasion she advised him not to study with women lest some evilly disposed person might revile him.[218] We may safely infer from this that it was not unusual for young children to receive the rudiments of education from the nuns, but that by the time they reached the age of six or more probably seven years[219] they were sent to the monastic school. Moreover, St. Ita’s words of advice clearly suggest that education was provided for girls but that except in the case of children of pre-adolescent age she was decidedly opposed to co-education. Unlike St. Brendan and some other saints, St. Columbanus was not put to fosterage and his childhood’s days were spent in his father’s home under his mother’s care.[220] His latest and best biographer informs us that he received his earliest literary education from an elderly lady who lived near his parent’s home.[221] One of the First Order of Saints named Mugint founded a school in Scotland to which girls as well as boys were admitted.[222] It is evident likewise that the Irish missionaries in Northumbria did much for the education of women. Among the more noteworthy convents or monasteries for women that owe their origin to Irish missionaries were St. Bees, Coldingham,