28 Antiquities ^ Social Customs^ &c. 



paper by the Rev. Dr. Stokes, and in his work " Ireland and the 

 Celtic Church " you will find a further account of the origin of 

 monasticism in Ireland. About the middle of the third, and 

 the commencement of the fourth century, the Roman Emperors 

 sorely persecuted the Christian Church over the entire of their 

 dominions. Great numbers of Christians in consequence of 

 this, in Syria and Egypt particularly, left their homes and 

 retired to desert places to dwell. From this cause monasticism 

 originated. They lived in the deserts at first singly as anchorites, 

 who were the original monks, and at a later period in com- 

 munities under the rule of an abbot. St. Anthony is looked 

 upon as the founder of monasticism in Egypt, where he lived 

 in the desert to a very old age — I think some 90 years. This 

 example was copied in Ireland, and anchorite monks retired to 

 a place called a desert, where they lived a very ascetic life. Place 

 names commencing with desert, such as Desertmartin and 

 Desertcreat, derived the name from monks who had retired to 

 these places. Many in Egypt followed in St. Anthony's foot- 

 steps, so that before his death he had thousands of followers. 

 In those times there was considerable commercial intercourse 

 between Alexandria and various Mediterranean ports, as far as 

 Gaul. Marseilles then as now was a great commercial port, and 

 along these trade routes the monks followed in the course of 

 time just as our missionaries follow in the track of English 

 commerce. They founded communities along the islands, 

 avoiding the mainland, and the great cities until they reached 

 Gaul, from which they eventually came to Ireland. The islands 

 around the West Coast of Ireland suited their purpose admirably, 

 and in all the principal islands from the Skelligs to the Copelands 

 they founded monasteries, the ruins of which after the lapse of 

 1,300 years we had on this excursion come to inspect. On 

 Innismurray there still exists in a wonderfully perfect state one 

 of these primitive monasteries, another on the Skellig Rocks, 

 off the Coast of Kerry. The history of the ancient Irish Church 

 clearly shows it was derived from the Eastern not the Western 

 Church. The architecture is of an Egyptian type known as 



