The monks and students in these establishments led a busy and happy life; for it was a rule that there should be no idleness. Everyone was to be engaged at all available times in some useful work. Some tilled the land around and belonging to the monastery--ploughing, digging, sowing, reaping--and attended to the cattle; some worked as carpenters, tailors, smiths, shoemakers, cooks, and so forth, for the use of the community. Some were set apart to receive and attend to travellers and guests, who were continually coming and going: to wash their feet, and prepare supper and bed for them. Many were employed as scribes, to copy and ornament manuscript books; while others made beautiful crosiers, brooches, chalices, crosses, and other works of metallic art; and the most scholarly members were selected to teach in the schools. Besides this, all had their devotions to attend to, which were frequent and often long. The Third Order of Irish saints consisted of about 100 priests, of whom a few were bishops: “these were HOLY, and shone like the stars”; and they lasted a little more than three-quarters of a century. They were all hermits, living either singly or in monasteries in remote lonely places. Even when they lived together in numbers they were still hermits, spending their time in prayer and contemplation, each in his own little cell; and they never met together, or had any communication with each other, except at stated times, when all assembled in the little church for common worship, or in the refectory for meals. We know that there were nuns and convents in Ireland from St. Patrick’s time, but they increased and multiplied, and flourished more than ever during and after the time of the greatest nun of all--St. Brigit of Kildare. In the time of St. Patrick, and for long afterwards, the churches were small, because the congregations were small; and they were mostly of wood, though some were of stone. We have, in fact, the ruins of little stone-and-mortar churches still remaining in many parts of the country, built at various times during the four or five centuries after St. Patrick. In the eleventh and following centuries, however, large and grand churches were built, the ruins of which still remain all over the country.