the
ambitious queen of Connacht, the most warlike and most expert in the
use of weapons of the women of the Gael--far superior in combat and
counsel to her husband, Ailill; of Emer, the faithful wife of
Cuchulainn; of Etain of the Horses (that was her name in Fairyland);
and of many others too numerous to mention.

It is with the introduction of Christianity into Ireland that the
Irish woman came into her rightful place, and attained the
preponderating influence which she, ever since, has held among the
Celtic people. In the period which followed the evangelization of the
island many were the "women of worth" who upheld the honor and glory
of "Inisfail the Fair", and women were neither the less numerous nor
the less ardent who hung upon the lips of the Apostle of Ireland.

Amid the galaxy of the saints, how lustrous, how divinely fair,
shines the star of Brigid, the shepherd maiden of Faughard, the
disciple of Patrick the Apostle, the guardian of the holy light that
burned beneath the oak-trees of Kildare! Over all Ireland and through
the Hebridean Isles, she is renowned above any other. We think of
her, moreover, not alone, but as the centre of a great company of
cloistered maidens, the refuge and helper of the sinful and
sorrowful, who found in the gospel that Patrick preached a message of
consolation and deliverance. Let it be remembered that the shroud of
Patrick is deemed to have been woven by Brigid's hand; that when she
died, in 525, Columcille, the future apostle of Scotland, was a child
of four. So she stands midmost of that trilogy of saints whose dust
is said to rest in Down.

Who that hears of Columcille will forget how He won that name, "dove
of the Church", because of his early piety, and that surely bespeaks
a mother's guiding care. Ethne, mother of Columcille, remains a vague
but picturesque figure, seen against the background of the rugged
heath-clad hills of Tir-Conal by the bright blue waters of Gartan's
triple lake. Her hearth-stone or couch is shown there to this day,
where once in slumber, before the birth of her son, she saw in a
glorious visionary dream a symbol of his future greatness. A vast
veil woven of sunshine and flowers seemed to float down upon her from
heaven: an exquisitely poetic thought, which gives us warrant to
believe that Columcille's poetic skill was inherited from his mother.

Ronnat, the mother of his biographer, St. Adamnan, plays a more
notable part in history, for, acc