holy men, monks to live like the Essenes of old, a contemplative life. He divided the islands into ten parts, and built ten monasteries, each under the rule of its proper superior; whilst he chose a place for his own residence on the eastern coast of the western island of Inishmore, and there erected a monastery, the name and site of which are preserved even to this day in the little village of Killeany (Kil-Enda), about a mile from Kilronan. Half the island was assigned to this monastery, and multitudes from afar flocked to Aran, which became the home of the learned and the pious. [Sidenote: ST. BRENDAN.] Amongst the remarkable men that there clustered, were St. Kieran, founder of Clonmacnoise, who died in 549, and St. Brendan. The history of the latter abounds with fable, but it is admitted that a thousand years before Christopher Columbus, he crossed the Atlantic and landed on the coast of Florida, where there is a strip of country which, according to Humboldt, in his Cosmos, bore the name of _Irland it Milka_, "Ireland of the white man." The visit of St. Brendan to Aran, previous to his departure to the great western continent, has been described by one of the most musical of our poets--Denis Florence MacCarthy--as follows:-- "Hearing how blessed Enda lived apart, Amid the sacred caves of Aran-mör, And how beneath his eye, spread like a chart, Lay all the isles of that remotest shore; And how he had collected in his mind All that was known to the man of the "old sea,"[3] I left the hill of miracles behind, And sailed from out the shallow sandy Leigh. "Again I sailed and crossed the stormy sound, That lies beneath Binn-Aite's rocky height, And there upon the shore, the saint I found Waiting my coming through the tardy night. He led me to his home beside the wave, Where with his monks the pious father dwelled, And to my listening ear he freely gave The sacred knowledge that his bosom held. "When I proclaimed the project that I nursed, How it was for this that I his blessing sought, An irrepressible cry of joy outburst From his pure lips, that blessed me for the thought. He said that he, too, had in visions strayed, O'er the untrack'd ocean's billowing foam; Bid me have hope, that God would give me aid, And bring me safe back to my native home. "Thus having sought for knowledge and for strength, For the unheard-of voyage that I planned, I left those myriad isles, and turned at length Southward my barque, and sought my native land. There I made all things ready day by day; The wicker boat with ox-skins covered o'er, Chose the good monks, companions of my way, And waited for the wind to leave the shore." [Sidenote: ST. FINNIAN.]