One great difficulty which St. Patrick had was to provide the people
with a native ministry. At first he selected the chief men--princes,
brehons, bards--and these, with little training and little education,
he ordained. Thus, slenderly equipped with knowledge, the priest,
with his ritual, missal, and a catechism, and the bishop, with his
crozier and bell, went forth to do battle for the Lord. This
condition of things was soon ended. In 450 a college was founded at
Armagh, which in a short time grew to be a famous school, and
attracted students from afar. Other schools were founded in the fifth
century, at Noendrum, Louth, and Kildare. In the sixth century arose
the famous monastic schools of Clonfert, Clonard, Clonmacnois, Arran,
and Bangor; while the seventh century saw the rise of Glendalough and
Lismore.

St. Patrick was educated in Gaul, at the monasteries of Marmoutier
and Lerins; and, perhaps as a result, the monastic character of the
early Irish church was one of its outstanding features; moreover it
was to the prevalence of the monastic spirit, the desire for solitude
and meditation, that so many of the great monastic establishments
owed their existence. Fleeing from society and its attractions, and
wishing only for solitude and austerity, some holy man sought out a
lonely retreat, and there lived a life of mortification and prayer.
Others came to share his poverty and vigils; a grant of land was then
obtained from the ruling chief, the holy man became abbot and his
followers his monks; and a religious community was formed destined
soon to acquire fame. It was thus that St. Finnian established
Clonard on the banks of the Boyne, and St. Kieran, Clonmacnois by the
waters of the Shannon; and thus did St. Enda make the wind-swept
Isles of Arran the home and the resting place of so many saints.