42 THE IRISH ARAN, 
Monaghan, and was converted by his sister, St. Fanchea, a nun. 
He repaired for religious purposes to Italy, where he became the 
founder or head of a large monastery, and, returning to Ireland after 
the lapse of many years with a numerous body of monks, obtained 
through the solicitation of St. Aible, the first Bishop of Cashel, 
from A‘ngus, King of Munster, the island of Aran, which had 
apparently passed from the kingdom of Connaught to that of 
Munster since the time of Queen Maeve. He found it to be 
inhabited by a few pagan Firbolgs, who fled in their curraghs with- 
out waiting to hear the word of God, and before his death, which 
took place about the year 542, he founded in Aran no less than ten 
religious houses. Ara Mor thus became celebrated among all the 
anchorites of Western Europe. It was divided into two parishes. 
Over the eastern parish St. Endeus himself presided, while the 
western was under the jurisdiction of the most eminent of his 
disciples, St. Breccan, a son of the Prince of Thomond, and the 
founder of the old diocese of Ardbreccan, in Meath. The names 
of others of these holy persons are preserved in connection with 
the religious antiquities of Aran, as St. Benan, or Benignus, St. 
Kronan, St. Caradoc, who was-a Briton, St. McLongius, St. 
Eperninus, and others. St. Brendan, of Clonfert, the celebrated 
navigator, visited Aran in the course of his famous Atlantic voyage, 
and started thence on his supposed trip of discovery to America. 
In fact Aran became a great school of asceticism and sanctity, 
and was constantly resorted to from the Continent for the study 
of the Sacred Scriptures, and for the practice of the austerities of a 
hermit’s life. An ancient writer states, ‘‘ That in one small cemetery 
here the bodies of 120 saints repose,’ and that more saints are 
buried in Aran than are known to anyone but God alone, in fact 
that relics as sacred as those which Catholics travel abroad to 
venerate in other countries here lie neglected under moss and 
bramble on our own deserted shores. 
About 1645, when Colgan was editing a history of the life of St. 
Endeus for the ‘‘ Acta Sanctorum Hiberniz,’’ he obtained a MSS. 
compiled by Augustin Magraidan, from an authority which seems 
to be as old as the days of paganism; this gives a list of the 
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