We find the rights of the Church respected and advocated; the monarchs submitting to the decision of the clergy; invocation of the saints; the practice of administering the holy viaticum; and the commemoration of the saints on the days devoted to their honour.
Usher observes, that the saints of this period might be grouped into a fourth order.[189] Bede says: "That many of the Scots [Irish] came daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the word and administered baptism....

The English, great and small, were by their Scottish [Irish] masters instructed in the rules and observances of regular discipline."[190] Eric of Auxerre writes thus to Charles the Bald: "What shall I say of Ireland, which, despising the dangers of the deep, is migrating with her whole train of philosophers to our coast ?" Rency, after describing the poetry and literature of ancient Erinn as perhaps the most cultivated of all Western Europe, adds, that Ireland "counted a host of saints and learned men, venerated in England[191] and Gaul; for no country had furnished more Christian missionaries." It is said that three thousand students, collected from all parts of Europe, attended the schools of Armagh; and, indeed, the regulations which were made for preserving scholastic discipline, are almost sufficient evidence on this subject.
The discussions of the Irish and English ecclesiastics on the time of keeping of Easter, with their subsequent decision, and all details concerning domestic regulations as to succession to office and church lands, are more properly matters for elucidation in a Church History, for which we reserve their consideration.
[Illustration: ANCIENT ADZE, FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY.] [Illustration: CROSS AT FINGLAS.] FOOTNOTES: [169] _Blefed_ .-- The name _Crom Chonaill_ indicates a sickness which produced a yellow colour in the skin.
[170] _Sanctuary_ .-- This may appear a severe punishment, but the right of sanctuary was in these ages the great means of protection against lawless force, and its violation was regarded as one of the worst of sacrileges.
[171] _Oak_ .-- Dr.Petrie mentions that there were stones still at Tara which probably formed a portion of one of the original buildings.

It was probably of the Pelasgian or Cyclopean kind.
[172] _Hour_ .-- Petrie's _Tara_, p.

31.
[173] _Tuathal_ .-- Very ancient authorities are found for this in the _Leabhar Gabhala_, or Book of Conquests.
[174] _Mill_.--"Cormac, the grandson of Con, brought a millwright over the great sea." It is clear from the Brehon laws that mills were common in Ireland at an early period.

It is probable that Cormac brought the "miller and his men" from Scotland.