136 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



duction of Christianity into the country, and, if it had been necessary, I might 

 have adduced a vastly greater body of evidence to substantiate the fact, I 

 may, I think, fairly ask : Is it probable that they would remain much longer 

 ignorant of the use of lime cement in their religious edifices, a knowledge of 

 which must necessarily have been imparted to them by the crowds of fo- 

 reign ecclesiastics, Egyptian, Roman, Italian, French, British, and Saxon, who 

 flocked to Ireland as a place of refuge in the fifth and sixth centuries ? Of 

 such immigration there cannot possibly exist a doubt ; for, not to speak of 

 the great number of foreigners who were disciples of St. Patrick, and of 

 whom the names are preserved in the most ancient Lives of that saint, nor of 

 the evidences of the same nature so abundantly supplied in the Lives of many 

 other saints of the primitive Irish Church, it will be sufficient to refer to that 

 most curious ancient document, written in the year 799, the Litany of St. 

 Aengus the Culdee, in which are invoked such a vast number of foreign saints 

 buried in Ireland. Copies of this ancient Litany are found in the Book of 

 Leinster, a MS. undoubtedly of the twelfth century, preserved in the library of 

 Trinity College, Dublin, class H. 2, 18 ; and in iheLeabharBreac, preserved in 

 the library of the Royal Irish Academy : and the palsages in it, relative to the 

 foreign ecclesiastics, have been extracted, translated into Latin, and published 

 by Ward in his Life of St. Rumold, p. 206, and by Colgan in his Acta Sancto- 

 rum, p. 539 [535], which latter extract I here insert, with the observations of 

 Colgan upon the interesting facts of which it furnishes evidence. 



" In ea namque naui deferebantur 50 Monachi patria Romani, quos fyc. c. 20. Hie benigne 

 Lector legis argumentum aliquod magnae istius opinionis, quam do sanctitate & doctrina huius sacra; 

 insula; olim conceperunt Eomatii, & alia; Europa; nationes, Habebatur enim in aureis illis seminata; 

 fidei prirnordiis, & aliquot sequentibus Sfficulis, non solum vt officina conuersionis gentium, sed 

 etiam ad asceticse vitse foueda exercitia, vt Tebais altera, communisque ad sapientia;, sacrarum- 

 scripturarum vacandum studiis Occidentis ludus litterarius : vt vix sciam an gloria; plus promeru- 

 erit, ex eo quod Doctores & Apostolos genuerit, & emiserit prope infinites, quarn ex eo quod ex con- 

 tinue Italorum, Gallorum, Germanorum, Britonum, Pictorum, Saxonum seu Anglorum, aliarumque 

 nationum arctioris vita;, & doctrines desiderio aduolantium accursu, incolatu & sepultura merito 

 appellari queat, communis Europae bonarum litterarum officina, communeque ascetaru sacrarium. 

 Plurima & admiranda de his reperiuntur in nostris hystoriis, maxime in vitis SS. Patricij, Kierani, 

 Declani, Albei, Endei, Maidoci, Senani, Brendani &c. testimonia. Ego ex solo libro littaniarum 

 Sancti jEngussij adduco sufficientia ; in quo author istius libri inter innumeros alios domesticos 

 sanctos, inuocat etiam sequentes sanctorum aduenarum in Hibernia sepultorum turmas. 



