Enda of Aran

According to the Martyrdom of Oengus, Enda was an Irish prince, son of Conall Derg of Oriel (Ergall) in Ulster.

The three islands of Aran stretch across the mouth of Galway Bay, forming a natural breakwater against the Atlantic Ocean.

[6] Geologically, the islands are an extension of the Burren in Clare, on the mainland to the southeast: an uplifted limestone block, striated by gashes ranging from inches to hundreds of feet deep.

The resulting flora are unique; Mediterranean and Alpine species meet here, attracting masses of tiny multicoloured butterflies.

At Killeaney the monks lived a hard life of manual labour, prayer, fasting, and study of the Scriptures.

The monks of Aran lived alone in their stone cells, slept on the ground, ate together in silence, and survived by farming and fishing.

Each community had its own church and its village of stone cells, in which they slept either on the bare ground or on a bundle of straw covered with a rug, but always in the clothes worn by day.

[4] Enda's monastery flourished until Viking times, but much of the stone was ransacked by Cromwell's men in the 1650s for fortifications, so only scattered ruins remain.

Cattle, goats, and horses now huddle and shiver in the storm under many of the ruins of old walls where once men lived and prayed.

He taught them to love the hard rock, the dripping cave, and the barren earth swept by the western gales.

[8] Corbanus, who was still a heathen, and a churl to boot, vacated the isle, and conveyed his people and their property to the opposite coast.

There he met St Enda and his monks preparing to cross in their slender currachs, and seemingly ill provided with food and furniture.

There were several sacks and casks of corn and meal on the shore belonging to Corbanus, and as the boats were putting off he joked to the saint, "Here are some barrels and sacks of good corn which I would gladly give to save you and these poor men with the shorn heads, from starvation, but your wretched boats could not bear their weight across."

At the word, sacks and barrels, with much bustle, shot forward over the boats and over the men in them, and in a direct line to the eastern landing-place of Inishmore.

[9] During his own lifetime, Enda's monastic settlement on the Aran islands became an important pilgrimage destination, as well as a centre for the evangelisation of surrounding areas.

[1] Aran became a miniature Mount Athos, with a dozen monasteries scattered over the island, the most famous, Killeany, where Enda himself lived.

[2] Saint Ciaran of Clonmacnoise came there first as a youth to grind corn, and would have remained there for life but for Enda's insistence that his true work lay elsewhere, reluctant though he was to part with him.

Saint Finnian left St Enda and founded the monastery of Moville (where Columba spent part of his youth) and who afterwards became bishop of Lucca in Tuscany, Italy.

Those who lived there loved the islands which "as a necklace of pearls, God has set upon the bosom of the sea", and all the more because they had been the scene of heathen worship.