These lay schools, being now within the Christian communion, were not abolished or discouraged in any way by St. Patrick or his successors. They were simply let alone, to teach their own secular learning just as they pleased. They continued on, and were to be found in every part of Ireland for fourteen centuries after St. Patrick’s arrival, down to a period within our own memory; but of course greatly changed as time went on. In later times they were much more numerous in Munster than in the other provinces; and they taught--and taught well--classics and mathematics; and often both combined in the same school. I was myself educated in some of those lay schools; and I remember with pleasure several of my old teachers: rough and unpolished men most of them, but excellent, solid scholars, and full of enthusiasm for learning--enthusiasm which they communicated to their pupils. In some respects indeed they resembled the rugged, earnest, scholarly Irishmen of old times, who travelled through Europe to spread religion and learning, as described at pp. 54, 55, farther on. But the famine of 1847 broke up those schools, and in a very few years they nearly all disappeared. But our business here is mainly with the early monastic schools, which became so celebrated all over Europe. Before going farther it is well to remark that these schools also continued, and increased and multiplied as time went on. They held their ground successfully--as the lay schools did--during the evil days of later ages, when determined attempts were made, under the penal laws, to suppress them; and at the present day they are working all over the country quite as vigorously as in days of yore. To notice all the monastic schools of old that attained eminence would demand more space than can be afforded here. So we must content ourselves with mentioning the following, all of which were very illustrious in their time:--Bangor (Co. Down), Lismore (Co. Waterford), Clonmacnoise, Armagh, Kildare, Clonard (Meath), Clonfert (Galway), Durrow (King’s Co.), Monasterboice (near Drogheda), Rosscarbery (Co. Cork), and Derry. Besides these, at least twenty-five others, all eminent, are specially mentioned in our old books. Most of these colleges were working, not in succession, but all at the same time, from the sixth century downwards. When we bear in mind that there were also, during the whole period, the lay schools, which, though smaller, were far more numerous--scattered all over the country--we shall have some idea of the universal love of learning that existed in Ireland in those days, and of the general spread of education. No other nation in Europe could boast of so many schools and colleges in proportion to size and population.