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 a thrust of his crozier. He lingered in mortal sickness for nearly a year, and in the end died of the 'internal wound inflicted by the miracle of God and Keiran.' After all this terrible record, the Annalists do not hesitate to speak of him as 'anchorite and scribe, the best of the Irish in his time.' And one of the bards wrote concerning him:

If in Felim we have the bishop-prince at his worst, in Cormac, one of his successors, we have the same character at its best. He was a warrior, but not a plunderer; he had all the ability of a statesman, and at the same time he was the liberal patron of art and literature. Though he never actually secured supremacy for himself, he made it an easy task for his successors to place Munster at the head of all the kingdoms of Ireland. Yet his greatness was altogether that of a soldier and king; and from the very excellence of his character we can see how incongruous was the combination of secular and spiritual rule in the one person. We may admire the brave king leading his followers to battle, and falling in the midst of the fighting men; but when we find him described as 'a bishop, an anchorite, a scribe, and profoundly learned in the Irish tongue,' we cannot help thinking that his place should have been in the quiet cloister, rather than in the noisy battle-field.

The monastic system of the Irish Church, modified as it was by the tribal organization, had proved itself excellent in many ways. It had provided peaceful retreats where pursuits of learning and industry might be followed, even in the midst of turmoil and