EAKLY CELTIC CHURCHES OF BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 208 



scarcely necessary. Anyone who has travelled through the 

 West of England and Scotland has come in the most out-of-the- 

 way places upon dedications to Irish saints. St. Brigit is as 

 well known to the peasants of Western Scotland as to those of 

 Kildare ; St. Finnbarr of Cork has also his hermitages and place- 

 names in Tarbet in Argylesliire, and elsewhere ; St. Cannice of 

 Kilkenny is St. Kenneth of St. Ancbews ; St. Bega, the foundress 

 of St. Bee's monastery, was Iiish ; St. Brendan, the voyaging saint, 

 has left liis name in " Brandon " Hill near Bristol, and crosses 

 of St. Columb are to be found in parishes in Cornwall. Every- 

 where the disciples of these famous reachers penetrated, leaving 

 on their settlements the revered name of the abbot under 

 whose teaching and guidance they had grown up, and at whose 

 instigation they had left their native land in order to found 

 settlements elsewhere. 



But more than this. Let us, before we close, take a glance 

 at the map of Europe and trace the footsteps of the Irish monks 

 there. 



Eighteen monasteries in Germany and Switzerland, over 

 tliirty in France and many in Italy and the Xetherlands (to give 

 to these countries their modern names) carried on into the 

 Middle Ages the memory of their Irish founders. The Welsh 

 or British missionaries confined their work cluetiy to Ai'morica or 

 Brittany, a district largely peopled from South and West 

 Britain ; but from the cliilly wastes of Iceland down to the 

 vine-clothed Apennines we find the cells, the tradition and the 

 manuscripts of Irish saints. The Canton of St. Gall was named 

 after the companion of St. Columbanus, whose monastery was 

 one of the great central houses of call in the Middle Ages for 

 pilgrims passing from the Xorth into Italy : in Seckingham on 

 L. Constance the bishopric dates back to Yu'giHus, otherwise 

 Fergal, the Irish Abl;)ot who left liis monastery of AgliaV)oe in 

 Queen's County to settle in the forests of Southern Switzerland ; 

 over the Canton of Glarus still waves the figm-e of St. Fridolin, 

 the Irish saint. St. Cataldus, Patron of Toronto in Southern 

 Italy, St. Colman, patron saint of Lower Austria, were Irishmen. 

 When you enter Florence by the western gate you pass under 

 the portals of St. Frediano, Irish preacher in Florence and 

 Bishop of Lucca ; as you climb the sweet slopes of Fiesole you 

 rest beside the little chapel of St. Donatus, an Irish hermit who 

 settled there and built his hut. 



Outside the city of Paris is still to be visited the holy well of 

 St. Fiacre, an Irislmian whose shrine was so much frequented 

 in the ^fiddle Ages that it gave a special name to the carriages 



